East Ridge First Responders Represent City in 9/11 Stair Climb

Contributed photo _ ERFD firefighters, from left, Drew Andrews, Randy Albright and Thomas Finch display a commemorative flag during the 2021 Chattanooga 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, Sunday at AT&T Field.

A handful of members of the East Ridge Fire Department and East Ridge Police Department participated in the seventh annual Chattanooga 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at AT&T Field on Sunday morning.

The event commemorates the heroic actions of New York City first responders climbing 110-stories of stairs at the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in an attempt to save people trapped in the high-rise building after terrorists flew planes into them.

A 3.43-mile walk was offered as an alternative, in honor of the 343 firefighters who perished while responding to the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

Contributed photo _ The whole crew (left to right) Arthur Richards, Randy Albright, Thomas Finch, Tim Spires, Eric Massengale, Drew Andrews, Scott Darwin.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.