Display in Browning’s office honoring her father Jerry. Photo by Jordan Fry.

It was Sept. 9, 2001. A man and his son were hunting in Circle, Mont. when the man unexpectedly took a deep breath, his final breath, and collapsed into the arms of his son.

The following day, the man’s daughter received a horrifying phone call relaying what had happened. She immediately left to go be with her family in Tucson, Ariz.

The next morning, Sept. 11, the man’s daughter woke up, turned the corner in her brother’s house, and witnessed another tragedy – an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.

“My very first thought was ‘Oh no, so many other people are going to be sad like me now because they just lost their dads too,’” recalled Leigh Browning, associate professor of mass communications.

Browning was in shock. She had just lost her father Jerry, a preacher, a hunter, and a “fiercely patriotic” Navy veteran. She empathized with the thousands of other children who had just lost their parents.

Meanwhile on the WTAMU campus, several of Browning’s students were gathered around her office wanting only to talk to and comfort their professor in her time of loss.

“They called and talked to me on speakerphone,” Browning said. “They just wanted to hear my voice and to know I was okay.”

The students were also worried about how they should proceed with KWTS programming in light of the terrorist attacks. Browning helped guide them over the phone, but was then faced with a new problem.

Because many flights were grounded after terrorists hijacked four American airplanes, Browning and her family were unable to get her father’s body back to Tucson. Yet, Browning knew there had to be a way.

“I called in a favor to a former student who was working for the Associated Press,” she said. A story then ran on the wire detailing Browning’s predicament. After the story got out, arrangements were made and Browning’s father was finally able to come to his final resting place.

After 9/11 , Browning became more aware of the importance of relationships with the people in her life.

“9/11 strengthened my relationships with my students, my family, my country, and certainly God,” she said. “That day reminds us how fragile and precious life is.”

In an article written by Browning shortly after the death of her father, she said, “My dad…could not have written a better, more fitting ending to his life on this Earth.” She went on to write that her dad “is in a much better place.” Looking back, Browning feels that “heaven needed another preacher that day.” That thought helps put her at peace.