Childhood friends killed on 9/11; one inside Pentagon, other on plane

By Angela Williams

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    JACKSON, Mississippi (WAPT) — Two Mississippians were among those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon.

Lt. Col. Jerry Don Dickerson Jr., 41, was inside the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into it. Joe Ferguson, 39, who grew up with Dickerson in Durant, was aboard the plane.

Dickerson worked on operations research and systems analysis at the Pentagon, according to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. He was married with two children.

Ferguson, a National Geographic photographer, was with three Washington, D.C. school teachers and three students on the plane headed to a field trip to the Channel Islands.

Both men attended school in Durant. The school district named an endowment after the two Durant natives a few years after the 2001 attacks.

Dickerson was among the 125 people working at the Pentagon who were killed. Fifty-nine passengers, including six crew members, along with five hijackers were killed. Five children were among the passengers who died.

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