TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — First responders from across the Big Bend gathered in Leon County on Tuesday for a ceremony meant to say thank you \u2014 and to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.<\/p>\n
The Leon County Sheriff\u2019s Office held its annual First Responders Appreciation Luncheon one day before the anniversary of Sept. 11, bringing law enforcement, firefighters and other first responders together for a day of recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, this is a special event here that the Sheriff\u2019s Office puts on. It\u2019s amazing to be recognized and especially at this time of year surrounding 9\/11,\u201d said Anthony Espinosa of the Tallahassee Fire Department.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of first responders and community leaders attended.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Walt McNeil said the luncheon is also about strengthening connections between agencies \u2014 something he said the events of Sept. 11 reinforced.<\/p>\n
\u201c9\/11 taught us all lessons that it takes all of us to engage. And I want to make sure that our firefighters and our EMTs understand that and get as much recognition that you so richly deserve,\u201d McNeil said.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years after the attacks, sacrifice remained a theme throughout the afternoon. Florida state Sen. and former FSU football star, Corey Simon, was today’s guest speaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get a call. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re walking into. You don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to be there. You don\u2019t know how bad it\u2019s going to be But you go anyway,\u201d Simon said.<\/p>\n
For Espinosa, the message was personal. Originally from New York, he said the upcoming Sept. 11 anniversary hits close to home.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so it hits close to home knowing what those men and women gave up for their family, for their country,\u201d Espinosa said.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, speakers emphasized, the legacy of those sacrifices continues to shape the first responders who answer the call today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — First responders from across the Big Bend gathered in Leon County on Tuesday for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-396205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}