Oklahoma City memorial passes fund-raising goal

By The Associated Press

Published: July 27, 2005

The Oklahoma City National Memorial said Wednesday it has raised $7.35 million and stands to collect an additional $10 million in state and federal matching money to boost the endowment that helps pay the memorial's operating expenses.

By surpassing the $5 million goal of its Second Decade Campaign, the memorial to victims of the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing will receive $5 million in matching funds approved by Congress and another $5 million approved by the Oklahoma Legislature and Gov. Brad Henry. The memorial's fund-raising campaign began Nov. 22.

"The overwhelming success of our campaign financially secures this historic site to teach the lessons of how terror was transformed to hope," said Frank Hill, chairman of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation.

A truck bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people and damaging dozens of surrounding buildings. The bombing, which resulted in convictions of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, remains the largest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

A memorial was dedicated in 2000 featuring a field of 168 empty chairs, a reflecting pool and two "Gates of Time" marking the minutes before and after the bombing at 9:02 a.m. A museum opened the following year in a building adjacent to the bombing site.

The memorial was built with funds from a $29 million capital campaign, but depends on donations and revenues from museum tickets and gift shop sales to continue operating.

The new funds will build the memorial's endowment from about $5 million to more than $20 million, executive director Kari Watkins said. The memorial's operating budget is about $3 million annually. Ticket sales pay for about half of that figure. About $125,000 is spent each year on educational outreach,.

Watkins said the memorial plans to continue to extend this outreach, which includes hosting field trips and distributing teacher education packets that they can use to pass the memorial's anti-violence message to students in the classroom.

"We really are trying through the school system to reach children and make them understand the very simple lesson that terrorism is not an alternative that works, and there are other ways to solve political differences," Watkins said.

Watkins said the memorial also hopes to take its message on the road to people who are unable to visit Oklahoma City.

"Our plan is as big as the sky," Watkins said.

Oklahoma energy companies Kerr-McGee Corp. Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp. provided a total of $1.5 million to jumpstart the funding drive. The memorial received numerous gifts to push past its fund-raising goal.

"It was really just a lot of grassroots donations from a $10 gift to a $10,000 gift," Watkins said. "People have been so generous."

The donors will be recognized on new bronze panels or on interactive computer screens in the lobby of the memorial's museum.

Watkins said the memorial has received half of the funds from the federal government and expected the other half in the next fiscal year. The memorial is working on a memorandum of understanding regarding the state funds, Watkins said.