NEVER FORGET
HUNDREDS GATHER FOR 21ST BOMBING ANNIVERSARY REMEMBRANCE CEREMONY
Ted Krey — a first responder after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — and others on Tuesday marked the 21st anniversary of the attack.
In a letter read at the ceremony marking the 21st anniversary of the Murrah Building bombing, President Barack Obama called the people of Oklahoma City inspiring.
“We will never forget the innocent souls taken from us that day, nor will we forget the resilience the survivors demonstrated in the wake of this unspeakable tragedy. Refusing to succumb to fear ... a community of friends and neighbors came together to lift each other up,” the president wrote. “Michelle and I join in paying tribute to those we lost 21 years ago, and we send our thoughts and prayers to the survivors and to the inspiring people of Oklahoma City.”
Mike Turpen, the former state attorney general, read the letter to the hundreds gathered in a church for the anniversary ceremony. After reading the letter, Turpen, the chairman of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation, said the continued support of the president and others around the world “reminds us that we are not alone.”
The 21st anniversary remembrance ceremony was held inside First Church, across the street from the Oklahoma City
National Memorial & Museum. A light rain moved the ceremony into the church, but guests still visited the outdoor memorial afterward.
Tuesday’s anniversary drew a smaller crowd than last year’s outdoor ceremony which featured a speech from former President Bill Clinton.
Kari Watkins, the executive director of the memorial and museum, said Tuesday marked the third time the anniversary ceremony had to be moved indoors.
“The church is very symbolic in its own way just because that church was so damaged that they were out of it for a year, and they built it back (and) stayed in the heart of downtown,” Watkins said.
In the only speech Tuesday, Gov. Mary Fallin told the audience, “Today we’re back, and we haven’t forgotten, 21 years later, that there were people who suffered tremendous loss ... and there were certainly so many men and women who faced evil with courage and stepped up to help that day.”
The ceremony included a moment of silence lasting 168 seconds to remember each victim of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The moment of silence later was followed by reading the 168 names.
Peggy Rider, of Shawnee, was one of more than a dozen people who read off the names. Rider lost her sister in the bombing and she read her sister’s name.
‘Big loss to our family’
“I still miss her. I think about her every day. She was my big sister, and it was a big loss to our family,” Rider said afterward while at the outdoor memorial. “I find peace here, by the chairs. Inside the museum itself, it’s very tough. I’ve yet to make it all the way through . ... It’s just too hard.”
Her sister, Carrol June “Chip” Fields, was 48 at the time, working on the ninth floor as the office manager for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Rider said.
U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Tuesday released a statement from Washington, D.C., saying, “I want the people of Oklahoma to know that we stand with you.” He also noted his personal connection to the bombing.
“My wife, Janna, is from Oklahoma. A lot of our family lives there. And the church we got married in — St. Joseph Old Cathedral — was damaged in the bombing,” Ryan wrote. “But more important than that, we lost 168 Americans that day . ... We can never get them back. But we can always honor their memory.”
Watkins was given Obama’s letter last week during a private meeting with the president in the Oval Office. She visited the White House after the museum received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award.