OKC Bombing Memorial for Edmond Victims
Sponsor: Provided by Civic Groups, individual donors and City of Edmond prior to the Edmond Visual Arts Commission
The Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial for Edmond Victims was placed in a quiet area of Mitch Park in honor of the eighteen Edmond residents that lost their lives on April 19, 1995 in the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.
Diane E. Althouse, Paul Broxterman, Robert Chipman, Benjamin Davis, Carrol Fields, Ethel L Griffin, Christi Jenkins, Donald Ray Leonard, James A McCarthy, Kenneth McCullough, Pat Nix, Antonio (Tony) Reyes, Jules Valdez, Johnny Wade, David Jack Walker, Michael Weaver, Alan G. Whicher and Ronota Ann Woodbridge.
The text on the Memorial reads:
The quiet boom that rattled windows in Edmond on April 19, 1995, could have been thunder. Distant booms are common here on the prairie in the spring. Within minutes, though, the world knew that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City had been bombed. Within seconds, 168 Oklahomans died. Eighteen Edmond residents were among the dead.
Two of them had protected presidents. Killed in the blast were a former city council candidate, a mother of four and a pavement engineer. There was a drug enforcement agent and an assistant in the same office. There were a Marine Corps sergeant, two financial analysts and an avid youth sports coach.
In the rubble was a man who moved to Oklahoma the December before the bombing, and another had been here only two weeks. Killed was a mother that sang in the church choir, a father of two and a man a few months short of retirement. One data review technician loved to make crafts, while another man worked to obtain equal housing opportunities for minorities.
They all died doing their jobs.
With the blast, others began a long month of doing their own jobs. Edmond firefighters and police joined the national effort that first aimed to save survivors and later sought to remove those who died. In Edmond, the community rallied around the 18 families that had lost husbands, wives, parents, sons and daughters. What could have been Edmond’s darkest hour became one of unity and hope.
After more than a month of searching, the Murrah Building was demolished by implosion, and the final bodies were recovered.
As time passes, the wounds are healing and the memories of that terrible day are fading. This memorial is here to ensure those who died are remembered. By Brad Lyons, Edmond Evening Sun staff writer who covered the tragedy and its aftermath.
The memorial was designed to transition the visitor from the harsh reality of the bombing itself, conveyed by the hard stone and vertical angles at the entry, through a portal, to the peace and tranquility provided by the park setting.
