Palo Verde Cadets Honor 9/11 Loss | Ryan Rose

by Ryan Rose

What Happened

Barbara Edwards was a teacher. That is how most people who knew her describe her first. She taught German and French, and she was 58 when she died on September 11, 2001. She was a passenger on the American Airlines flight that was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed that morning across New York, Virginia, and a field in Pennsylvania. Edwards was the only full-time Las Vegas resident on that list. For a valley that now holds more than two million people, that single name carries a lot of weight. She is the local connection to a day that changed the country.

Every year since then, students at Palo Verde High School have held a ceremony in her memory. The cadets in the school's Air Force Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program organize it. They handle the planning, the setup, and the honors. The memorial sits near the school's soccer field, which means the ceremony happens on the campus itself rather than at a city park or a government building.

This year is different because of the number. September 11, 2026 marks 25 years since the attacks. The Review-Journal reported that organizers are preparing for a larger turnout than usual. Anniversaries ending in a round number tend to draw people who have not attended before, including families, veterans, and neighbors who simply want to be somewhere that day.

There is something worth sitting with here. The cadets running this ceremony were not alive in 2001. Not one of them. A high school senior in the fall of 2026 was born around 2008 or 2009, roughly seven years after the attacks. Everything they know about September 11 came from a parent, a teacher, a textbook, or a screen. And yet they are the ones setting up the chairs, folding the flag, and reading the name of a woman they never met.

Rows of small American flags planted in a green grass field during daytime, a common tribute display at September 11 remembrance events

Why It Matters to Las Vegas Residents

Las Vegas does not have a lot of shared civic memory that everyone in the valley holds together. The city grew fast, and most people who live here now moved here from somewhere else. A large share of Clark County residents were not in Nevada in 2001. Many were not born yet. That makes a small, steady, student-run ceremony more valuable than it might seem at first.

For families in the northwest valley, this is a local event with a real local subject. Barbara Edwards was not a national figure. She was a teacher who lived here, worked here, and got on a plane. Her story is the kind of thing that turns an abstract date on a calendar into a person with a name, a classroom, and a commute.

It also matters because of who is doing the work. JROTC programs in Clark County School District give students structure, leadership practice, and a reason to show up for something bigger than a grade. Running a public ceremony is not a small task. Cadets have to coordinate with school administration, prepare the color guard, manage the schedule, and speak in front of adults. Those are skills that carry into college applications, military service, trade programs, and first jobs.

Parents looking at high schools in Summerlin and the northwest valley pay attention to things like this. When people ask me about schools in a neighborhood, they are rarely asking only about test scores. They want to know whether the school has programs their kid would actually join. A JROTC program that runs a 25-year-old community ceremony is a signal about school culture, and culture is one of the hardest things to measure from a real estate listing.

And for the rest of us, it is a reminder that community events in Clark County are often small, quiet, and run by people who are not paid to run them. The big anniversary ceremonies get television coverage. This one happens next to a soccer field because a group of teenagers decided it should keep happening.

There is a practical angle too. Teachers are a big part of the workforce in this valley. Clark County School District is one of the largest employers in Nevada, and its staff live in every corner of the county, from Aliante to Mountains Edge to Green Valley. When a school honors a teacher who died, it is honoring a profession that a lot of families here depend on for a paycheck as well as an education.

I hear from teachers regularly in my work. They ask about commute times to their assigned campus, about which neighborhoods keep them close to family, about whether a house payment works on a district salary. Barbara Edwards was one of those people once. She had a school, a subject, and a life in this valley. That is the part that sticks with me.

Background and History

Palo Verde High School sits in the northwest part of the Las Vegas valley, in the broader Summerlin area. It is a comprehensive Clark County School District high school, and like most large CCSD campuses it carries a wide mix of academic, athletic, and military-affiliated programs. The Air Force JROTC unit is one of those programs.

Air Force Junior ROTC is a citizenship and leadership program, not a recruiting pipeline. Cadets are not obligated to join the military. The curriculum covers aerospace science, leadership education, wellness, and community service. Ceremonial duties, including color guard presentations at school and community events, are a standard part of the program across the country. That is the framework the Palo Verde ceremony fits into.

The Edwards memorial has been held annually since the attacks, which puts the 2026 ceremony at 25 years. That length matters. Most student-organized traditions do not survive a full generation. Students graduate every four years, staff move on, and priorities shift. For a ceremony to run a quarter century, it has to be handed off deliberately, over and over, by people who care enough to teach the next group how to do it.

Nevada's connection to September 11 has always been indirect compared to New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Nevada lost residents and the state sent people to the response, but the valley did not experience the attacks the way East Coast communities did. That distance is part of why a single local name carries so much. Barbara Edwards is the person who makes the day local instead of national.

The valley itself has changed enormously since 2001. Summerlin was still filling in. Large parts of the northwest were raw desert. Clark County's population has grown by roughly a million people in the years since, and entire master planned communities that feel established today did not exist then. A ceremony that started in a smaller, quieter Las Vegas is now happening in a metro that looks almost nothing like the one that lost her.

That is worth pointing out because it explains why the memory has to be actively maintained. In a city where most residents arrived after the event, remembrance is not automatic. It only happens if an institution decides to carry it. In this case, the institution is a high school JROTC unit, and the carriers are 16 and 17 year olds.

Candles and flowers laid out as a memorial tribute, the kind of display used at annual September 11 remembrance ceremonies

What Happens Next

The 25th anniversary of the attacks falls on Friday, September 11, 2026. Organizers told the Review-Journal they expect a larger turnout than in past years. The ceremony is planned for the memorial near the Palo Verde High School soccer field. Specific start time and public access details were not included in the reporting, so anyone planning to attend should confirm directly with the school. [NOT VERIFIED: exact ceremony start time and whether the event is open to the general public]

Because the ceremony happens on a school campus during the school year, access rules may differ from a public park event. CCSD campuses generally have visitor check-in procedures, and a larger than usual crowd could change how the school manages parking and entry. Calling the school's front office ahead of time is the practical move.

Expect other September 11 observances across Clark County that week as well. Fire departments, police agencies, and veterans groups in Las Vegas, Henderson, and North Las Vegas typically hold their own ceremonies on or near the date. The Palo Verde event is distinct because it is student-run and because it honors a specific local resident rather than the day in general.

Traffic around the campus could also be heavier than a normal Friday morning if attendance climbs. Neighbors who live near Palo Verde High School may want to build in a few extra minutes for the school drop off window that day. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of small thing that saves people frustration.

Looking past this year, the real question is what happens at year 26 and year 30. Milestone anniversaries draw crowds. The years in between are where traditions either hold or fade. If the cadets who run the 25th ceremony hand it cleanly to the class behind them, this thing keeps going. That handoff is the actual story.

Twenty five years is also the point where a tradition starts to outlive the people who created it. The staff members who helped organize the first ceremony in 2001 have largely moved on or retired. What is left is the practice itself, taught from one cadet class to the next. Whether that survives another 25 years depends on choices that will be made quietly, in a school office, long after the news coverage ends.

Ryan's Take

I sell houses for a living, so I spend a lot of time talking with people about what makes a neighborhood feel like a place instead of just an address. This is one of those things. A ceremony that has run for 25 years, organized by kids who were born long after the event they are commemorating, says something about the northwest valley that no market report can capture.

The detail I keep coming back to is that none of these cadets were alive in 2001. They inherited this. Somebody older handed them a name and a responsibility, and they took it seriously enough to keep doing it every September. That is not a school assignment. That is a choice, made again by a new group of teenagers every single year for 25 years.

People move to Las Vegas from everywhere. That is our strength and it is also our weakness, because shared history takes time to build and we have not had much of it. Traditions like this one are how a fast-growing metro slowly turns into a community with a memory. I do not think that is a small thing, and I do not think it belongs in a sales pitch either. It is just worth noticing, and worth showing up for.

Rows of white marble headstones decorated with red roses and small American flags at a national cemetery

What You Can Do

If you want to attend, contact Palo Verde High School directly to confirm the time, the location on campus, and whether community members are welcome. School front offices can tell you the visitor procedure and where to park. Do not assume you can walk onto a CCSD campus during the school day without checking in first.

If you cannot attend, there are other ways to mark the day locally. Southern Nevada fire and police agencies, veterans organizations, and several city governments hold their own September 11 observances. Check the City of Las Vegas, City of Henderson, City of North Las Vegas, and Clark County event calendars in the days leading up to the anniversary.

You can also support the program itself. JROTC units across CCSD run on tight budgets and depend on volunteers, donations, and community partners for uniforms, travel, and equipment. If you have a business in the northwest valley and want to help a student program that clearly delivers, the JROTC instructor at Palo Verde is the person to ask. The same goes for JROTC units at other Clark County high schools near you.

If you have children in a Clark County school, this is also a reasonable week to talk with them about the date. Kids in CCSD classrooms today have no personal memory of 2001, and for many of them the subject only comes up in a history unit. A short, honest conversation at home does more than a slide deck. You do not need to make it heavy. Just make it real.

And if you have kids in middle school looking at high school options in Summerlin or the northwest valley, ask about programs like this on your tour. Course catalogs list classes. They do not tell you which programs have a 25-year tradition attached to them.

One more suggestion. If you knew Barbara Edwards, taught with her, or attended one of the earlier ceremonies, the school and the JROTC program would likely value hearing from you. Institutional memory in a school fades fast because the population turns over every four years. Firsthand accounts are the thing most at risk of being lost, and they are the easiest thing for a community member to preserve.

Have questions about how this affects your home or neighborhood? Reach out to Ryan Rose or text/call 702-747-5921 anytime.