Whenever September comes around, Paul Rigsby thinks back to 2001.

He was a student at the University of Wyoming, and on Sept. 16, five days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, his roommate, Josh Jones, and his former high school teammate, Morgan McLeland, lost their lives in a car accident. 

They were two of eight UW cross country runners who were killed by a drunken driver that day.

If not for a family emergency that brought him back to Gillette that weekend, Rigsby very well could have been with his friends in that crash. But instead of dwelling on the what-ifs, he takes time to appreciate the memories he made with his friends.

“It’s very humbling, and it definitely did make an impact on my life, to appreciate not only what I have but all the people around me,” he said.

Wednesday, Sept. 16, marked the 25th anniversary of that horrible accident 17 miles south of Laramie. The young men were traveling back from Fort Collins, Colorado, on U.S. Highway 287 when they were hit head-on by a drunk driver in a pickup.

Gillette felt the impact particularly hard. McLeland was a 1999 graduate of Campbell County High School and the 1998 4A state champion in cross country.

The anniversary of this crash is remembered with the Memory of the 8, an 8-mile race around town. And there are eight signs around town, each with the name of one of the eight runners, to remind people year-round.

“People just live in the now...we don’t focus on what’s happened,” said Sonny Roberts, who has helped organize the Memory of the 8 since its inception. “We have to have something there to remind us of the past.”

Things have changed in the last couple of years, said McLeland’s brother, Nathan. Their father, Jim, died in 2022, and their mother Debbie passed away in 2024, just two weeks after the 23rd anniversary of the crash.

“It’s definitely different without those two there,” Nathan said. “They were such big personalities, they were always so delighted to see everyone.”

Morgan was studying social studies and secondary education at the University of Wyoming because he wanted to become a high school history teacher. He would be 46 years old today, Nathan noted.

Nathan said he doesn’t remember exactly the last time he saw his brother. He remembers inviting Morgan to watch a movie with him and his wife, Robbie, the Saturday night before the crash, but Morgan turned them down.

“He wanted to go and be with his friends,” Nathan said. “He wanted to be with his team, and I certainly understood that.”

The next morning, Nathan got a call from his dad “at an unusual time.” Jim said he’d heard that something had happened to Morgan. Initially, Nathan wasn’t worried.

“At first, I was like, ‘Morgan’s here, I heard him come in, but I’ll see what I can find out,’” Nathan said.

He thought he’d heard his brother come into the house that night. He would later learn that this was Morgan’s roommate who came in.

Nathan called Wyoming Highway Patrol, which wasn’t releasing information at the time. But eventually, he got that call back, saying Morgan was killed in a car crash. Then more news started trickling in, and everyone realized the magnitude of the situation: Eight young men had lost their lives.

Campbell County rallied around the tragedy, and the community support was, and still is, huge, Nathan said. But the pain never really goes away.

“I don’t know that you ever get over anything like that,” he said. “I just put my head down, went back to work, but it was always kind of there. It’s still there.”

Rigsby and Morgan ran together for the Camels cross country team. Morgan was a sophomore when Rigsby was a senior.

“I never saw him get upset,” Rigsby said. “He always took all of our difficult workouts in stride…he had a good attitude…and every workout he would do with no hesitation.”

They ended up being at UW at the same time for a few years. Rigsby remembers when the news of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hit the UW campus.

“We went to our first few classes, then we spent the rest of the day watching news reels,” he said.

It was a rough week, and Rigsby was planning on hanging out with Morgan, Jones and the rest of the guys that weekend. But a family emergency brought him back to Gillette instead.

Rigsby was going to drive back to Laramie that Sunday, but he stopped by a friend’s house in Gillette to say goodbye.

“She told me that Morgan had died in a car wreck. That just floored me,” he said.

After this, Rigsby tried calling his roommate, Jones, who also ran for the UW cross country team. The calls kept going unanswered.

“I knew (Josh and Morgan) were hanging out together, but I didn’t think about how he could’ve been in the same accident,” Rigsby said. “It still didn’t click in my head…I was calling and calling and calling.”

Twenty-five years later, Rigsby’s two oldest children, Summer and Andrew, now run cross country and track for Campbell County High School. He makes sure to emphasize to them that while running a fast time or winning a meet is fun, being part of a close-knit group is what lasts long after their running careers are over.

“It’s the bus rides down, the team dinners, everything outside of the races that makes a difference,” Rigsby said. “It’s no longer just a race, or just a workout, you’re building these awesome relationships with amazing people, and it’s something you can’t take for granted.”

And every time Sept. 16 rolls around, or whenever Rigsby is out running and sees one of the signs honoring one of the eight runners, he’s reminded of the tragedy, of course.

But more importantly, he’s reminded of the good times they had.

“It takes me back and puts a smile on my face,” he said. “It’s easy, as humans, to forget about certain things. But if you have that constant reminder to bring those memories back up, it’s a blessing.”