Abbey Waller
Contributing Writer
“There was life before 9/11 and life after 9/11,” David Houghton, Lloyd G. and Betty E. Minter Chair of Business, said. “The world changed that day.”
Twenty-five years later, the details remain clear: where he was, what he was doing, who he was with and how one moment changed the way he viewed the world.
Houghton was driving to work in Idaho and listening to the radio when he heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center.
“As I walked through the door at work, my colleagues were huddled around a small TV,” Houghton said. “I joined them and watched incredulously as smoke billowed out of the twin towers.”
The attacks changed Houghton’s perspective on the world. Following the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as a dominant global power, he had believed the world was finally becoming a safer place.
“That changed in an instant in the 9/11 attack,” Houghton said.
For Oklahoma Baptist University faculty and staff, Sept. 11 is more than a date on the calendar. It brings memories of classrooms, conversations, television screens and the realization that the country they knew had changed.
What they watched from hundreds of miles away became a defining moment for generations. However, the distance continues to grow between those who witnessed the attacks and those who know the day only through photographs, videos, classroom discussions and other people’s stories.
As OBU marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks, the memories of faculty and staff offer a personal connection between the generation that witnessed Sept. 11 and the generation now responsible for remembering it.
While Houghton understood the attacks’ significance immediately, others were too young to grasp the full meaning of what they saw.
Jared Lee, OBU’s assistant director of the Prison Divinity Program, was a fifth grader when the attacks occurred. His teacher turned on the television, and one of his classmates recognized the Pentagon.
“That’s the Pentagon,” the student yelled. “That’s where the military headquarters are.”
Lee remembers being interested in what was happening but unable to understand what an attack on the Pentagon meant. His parents tried to explain the events, but as a fifth grader, he could not comprehend how deeply the attacks would change the country.
“Airport security, the constant concern about terrorism and more than 20 years of American military involvement overseas all seemed normal to me because they were simply part of the world in which I grew up,” Lee said.
“Only later did I understand that much of what my generation experienced as ‘normal’ was actually part of the response to Sept. 11.”
Lee’s experience demonstrates how the effects of the attacks became woven into everyday American life. The Transportation Security Administration was created, access to airport gates was restricted and the United States began a lengthy military campaign in Afghanistan.
The changes were not only physical or political. The attacks also affected how Americans viewed their safety and one another.
According to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, about half of American adults said the attacks left them feeling more afraid, cautious, distrustful or vulnerable.
Kari Nunneley, a former OBU student who now serves as academic administration office coordinator, remembers exactly where she was that morning: her room in Taylor Residence Center.
After class, Nunneley went to the Geiger Center, where students had gathered to watch the news.
“Everyone was really quiet, and we were just at a loss for words,” Nunneley said.
Together, OBU students watched an event they would remember for the rest of their lives.
Current students experience Sept. 11 differently. Most were not alive when the attacks occurred, so they know the day through images, recordings and the memories of parents, professors and other adults.
Senior Noelle Compton remembers knowing about Sept. 11 as a child without fully understanding it. When she was 7, she found a note in her mother’s scrapbook describing how strange it felt to go through newly heightened airport security.
Although Sept. 11 is history rather than a lived experience for her generation, Compton said that does not make it irrelevant.
“I think that it is history, but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant,” Compton said. “History should inform our lives. That’s why ‘never forget’ is such a strong term.”
Remembering Sept. 11 also requires acknowledging that its aftermath affected people in different ways.
“One of the things that fascinates me most was the response of the community to serve the people who were affected,” Compton said.
“I think remembering responses of compassion and service should spur us into action, as well as denouncing the responses of fear and hatred toward Middle Eastern people living in America at the time and to this day.”
Senior Hannah Bussell also learned about the attacks through photographs, videos and classroom lessons.
“When seeing pictures from that day, I think that I cannot imagine the climate they were part of,” Bussell said.
“The turmoil, the fear, the doubt — all of those emotions truly feel intangible to me since I was not alive. I see those photos, and it doesn’t seem like the world I live in.”
Although Bussell cannot remember the day herself, the phrase “never forget” still holds meaning for her.
“For me, it means don’t forget the lives lost, the people mourning and the ways the world changed,” Bussell said.
“It means not forgetting that I should be thankful for what I have today and that I was born in a post-9/11 world.”
The phrase also represents a responsibility to learn and grow, she said.
“It means never forgetting that our world, political climate, perception and focus should be ever-changing,” Bussell said.
“We shouldn’t stay the same. We should grow and move forward knowing what we know now.”
For Houghton, Lee and Nunneley, remembering Sept. 11 means returning to scenes they can still visualize. For students such as Compton and Bussell, it means inheriting memories from those who were there.
Remembering may look different across generations, but its purpose remains: honoring the lives lost, recognizing those who mourned and continue to mourn, and understanding how the country changed.
As fewer firsthand witnesses remain to tell their stories, “never forget” takes on a new responsibility. The generation that followed must ensure those memories continue.
