Flag Run Crosses Oklahoma With Fanfare

Flag Heading To Los Angeles

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Runners carried an American flag to the Oklahoma City National Memorial on Monday as part of a cross-country trek along the route two jets would have taken had they not been hijacked on Sept. 11.

"It's kind of sad to think that it took such a tragedy to make patriotism flourish, but it has really pulled us together," said volunteer runner Mike Howard, 39, of nearby Edmond.

Howard ran the last 5½ miles to the memorial site in downtown Oklahoma City, where well-wishers waved flags and sang "God Bless America" and other patriotic songs about 6 p.m. Organizers of the run were given a handmade quilt by Oklahoma State University students during a 30-minute ceremony.

The U.S. flag was carried to the site of one of the nation's worst domestic terrorist attack by Eddie Beasley, also of Edmond, who was in a wheelchair. Beasley lost both legs in Vietnam.

Hundreds cheered as the runners gathered near the "survivor tree" in a plaza area of the memorial that honors the 168 who were killed in the 1995 explosion.

"It was important for us to come here," said Toss Wissing, American Airlines pilot and one of the national coordinators of the flag run from Boston to Los Angeles. "This is about healing and we're trying to learn lessons on how Oklahoma City healed."

U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas said Oklahomans remain grateful to the rest of the nation for the outpouring of support after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and want to do anything they can to help the survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The flag run reached Oklahoma from Texas on Sunday and will exit the state on Wednesday at about 1:30 a.m., crossing into the Texas Panhandle after going through such towns as Lexington, Purcell, Minco, Binger, Eakley and Dill City.

Mike Burr of Thomaston, Conn., another coordinator, said participants had seen a lot of support since the left Boston on Oct. 11, but "now we're seeing whole towns turn out as we come into remote areas of Texas and certainly in Oklahoma."

Earlier, runners stopped in Norman, about 30 miles south of Oklahoma City. U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, a former University of Oklahoma football star quarterback, carried the flag from a ceremony on campus.

The flag is scheduled to arrive on Nov. 11 in Los Angeles.

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