Eleven years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Miami University community is coming together to remember and honor the fallen.

The Arnold Air Society, a community service organization within the Air Force ROTC, will host its third annual 9/11 Memorial Run at the flagpole at Millett Hall to remember the events of that day and those who died.

According to Cadet Cher Ron McLemore, Arnold Air Society’s director of support, the event began with an area joint project.

“We basically had to hit an objective to somehow honor those who were lost in the 9/11 attacks,” McLemore said.

The result was the 9/11 Memorial Run. The run consists of students and organizations running or walking laps around the flagpole at Millett, McLemore said.

According to McLemore, the event consists of 2,977 laps, and for a special reason.

“We start at the flagpole, and then at 9:18, right when the attacks started, we start running laps and we run a lap for each life lost,” McLemore said.

Major Michael Thomas, Air Force ROTC director of operations and unit admissions officer, said the memorial run is completely a student-run project.

“It was their choice, their decision, their project,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the memorial run is a good way to remember the events of 9/11.

“Absolutely we should remember the loss,” Thomas said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

McLemore said the memorial run is a unique way of remembering 9/11.

“People can give monetary donations, materialistic donations, but [the memorial run] is more of a humbling experience of remembering,” McLemore said. “And just the impact from the community, the cohesiveness, the camaraderie, the unity, the patriotism in running the laps together—it has more of an impact than giving an actual donation of some sort.”

Miami first-year Claire Hardwick said she thinks it’s important to remember the events of 9/11 and things the 9/11 Memorial Run is a good way of doing so.

“I think that it’s important to respect the people that have died and everything that happened, and it’s good to remember it,” Hardwick said.

According to McLemore, Arnold Air Society is striving for a higher goal of laps this year: 4,000.

“Last year when we hit 2,977, we actually had runners keep going and we hit about 3,500 laps, so we just wanted to surpass our lap count that we did last year.

In addition to the 9/11 Memorial Run, the Miami regional campuses will also be hosting events and projects to honor 9/11. The Miami Hamilton Student Government Association will hold a silent auction and a presentation to the Hamilton mayor, and students at the Middletown campus will be doing a service learning project.