EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University will formally unveil at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 18, a quilt exhibit honoring federal employees killed in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla. The ceremony will occur at the Hannah Administration building.
The exhibit showcase is a 12-by-15 foot quilt made up of handmade squares memorializing the 58 federal employees killed in the blast. The quilt was a national project made by American Federation of Federal Employees (AFGE) members, family and friends to commemorate their fellow workers.
Ellen McManus, whose husband Ray is a government employee at the veteran's facility in Iron Mountain, worked with 14 members of the Spinning Spools Quilters guild of Iron Mountain to produce one of the largest numbers of squares from one group.
"My husband will never forget the effect of the bombing on federal employees like himself," said McManus. "Doing the quilt made the bombing more personal. It gave us all more interest in the people who lost their lives and the sacrifice they made."
The exhibit was brought to MSU as part of an on-going collaborative project, Our Daily Work Our Daily Lives, through the MSU Museum and the School of Labor and Industrial Relations. Harbor Industries and members of Local 1395 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, based in Grand Haven, donated their skills to construct the display frame.
The official opening will include appearances by Bobby Harnage, the national president of the AFGE and Mark Gaffney, the president of the Michigan AFL-CIO. It commemorates the 5-year anniversary of the bombing.
The quilt has previously been displayed on two military bases in New Jersey and at the AFL-CIO's training center in Silver Spring, Md. The quilt will hang in the lobby of MSU's Hannah Administration Building until June 2. Ultimately it will be transported to Oklahoma City where it will hang as a permanent exhibit at the new federal building.
The public is invited to view the exhibit Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.