FORSYTH, Mo. (KY3) – John Willett, a native of Walnut Shade and graduate of Branson High School, was killed on 9/11.
He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and was on the 101st floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center when the planes hit.
Willett was 29 years old.
His parents, Ron, who died in 2017, and Lucy, who died this May, went to New York City for the one-year remembrance of the terrorist attacks in 2002.
“I wanted to see some of the places that he’s been to and walk in his footsteps, so to speak,” said Lucy at the time.
“He wanted us to come to New York to visit him. So I feel like we’re visiting John,” said Ron.
Before he worked in New York, John was the Taney County treasurer. Gov. Mel Carnahan appointed him in 1995 when John was 23.
James Strahan was county assessor at the time and worked with John. He said John was destined for big things.
“His dad had often said, even in an interview after he was killed in New York, that he could have been president maybe some day. They had high goals,” Strahan said.
Strahan said he worked with John for about a year and a half.
They’d pass each other in the hallways and talk.
Strahan said John was outgoing and a go-getter.
“Nice kid. Energetic. Oh my gosh, there wasn’t no one with that much energy in Forsyth. He was very energetic and very intelligent,” Strahan said.
On the morning of 9/11, Strahan was on the phone in his office.
His clerk had the TV on. She rushed in and said, “You need to see this.”
“And that’s when the second plane had hit, and the whole office had kind of drifted into that little television, and someone said John Willett works in that one tower,” Strahan recalled.
A few minutes later, someone in the office tried to be optimistic.
“They just said, ‘Well, maybe John wasn’t at work on time,’” he said.
Later that afternoon, John’s father Ron confirmed the unthinkable.
“He let someone know that John had made it to work and wasn’t answering phone calls and that type of thing,” Strahan said. “It was a sad moment. It was a sad moment for America.”
John’s remains were never found. His parents held onto pictures, videos, anything with a link to their son.
“This is probably our biggest treasure from New York; it’s a piece of glass from the World Trade Center,” Ron explained after returning from New York City. “It may sound kind of far out, but that glass was pretty close to our son. Even if it was 100 stories away, it was still closer than we were.”
There is a plaque dedicated to John outside the Taney County treasurer’s office. There’s also a bench in his honor at the Branson High School football stadium.
On this 25th observance of the 9/11 attacks, Strahan has this message for everyone.
“I want them to remember that it can happen. We thought at the time as America that nobody could get into our infrastructure, or inside our borders and do that kind of harm, but they did, and it can happen again,” he said.
Strahan thinks computers and technology could make it easier for terrorists to strike the United States again. He says Americans need to stay alert.
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