By AJ Madrano
Student Reporter
On Saturday, it will have been 30 years since the Oklahoma City bombing and the devastation that left people in shambles. Some NWOSU staffers talked about their memories of that day.
Gretchen Jones, assistant director of athletics for compliance and student athletic services, said she feels that a higher power intervened in her life that day. She and her classmates were on their way to visit the Alfred P. Murrah Building for a seventh-grade fieldtrip the morning of April 19, 1995.
Jones said her class was running an hour late that day and was supposed to arrive at the federal building at 8 a.m., but something was wrong with the bus so they were late that day. After the bomb went off at 9:02 a.m. in Oklahoma City, they heard over the bus radio that they needed to turn back.
“We were half way up there, and turned around and came back,” she said. “What we did for the day is watched what happened. If we were on schedule we would’ve been there during the bombing, so kind of a weird situation blessing in disguise.”
Every year around the anniversary Jones said she gets a calming feeling, knowing that she and her class were miraculously safe that day, and she is just so blessed.
Matt Adair, housing director and assistant dean of student affairs and recruitment, was in high school when the bomb went off.
Adair said he remembers being told in a classroom by his math teacher. The teacher came in and said a bomb went off in Oklahoma City, and it was a big deal. At the time there were still rumors and speculations about additional devices as well as figuring out how many casualties there were.
He said at some point during the day, the teachers rolled in a TV, so they could watch live coverage of it, and it felt surreal to him.
“Well, I think it affected kind of everybody back then, and the first time I experienced anything like that in my lifetime,” Adair said. “I remember being a little scared and a little uneasy, not really knowing what was going on, and then the coverage over the next few days really put a stamp on Oklahoma history.
“Since that point in time, I’ve been down to the bombing memorial seven times and every time I’m around there, it kind of takes you back to that moment in time and that feeling of little helplessness and surreal, but it certainly kind of woke you up to the dangers of the world.”