3rd Anniversary of Oklahoma Bombing Noted

OKLAHOMA CITY — Ordinarily on a weekday afternoon, Glenda Riley would be at work, for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But on Wednesday, Riley was outside instead, walking along the fence that surrounds the ground where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood, and where her office was.

“I couldn’t do it today,” she said of her job.

The bombing on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people, 35 in the HUD offices. Timothy J. McVeigh was convicted of murder and Terry L. Nichols of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths.

“It’s just kind of a shocking feeling,” 15-year-old Amy Gillingham said as she looked at the messages, pictures, stuffed bunnies and bears fastened to the fence.

Gillingham and fellow band members from Mount Pleasant, Mich., were to perform today at a third anniversary ceremony.

She and the other musicians raised the money to come to Oklahoma City to play a commemorative piece written by her father, a music professor at Central Michigan University.