Speaker: Kari Watkins

Kari Watkins was the first employee hired by the OKC National Memorial in 1996. She has worked with hundreds of volunteers in guiding the memorialization process through the international design competition, construction and opening and operating the 3.3 acre outdoor symbolic Memorial and the 50,000 square foot Museum and archives. The Memorial is renowned around the word as one of the best community based processes used to help rebuild a city. Other cities including New York City, Shanksville, the Pentagon, Paris, France, Las Vegas and Uvalde have come to Oklahoma to learn. The Memorial today stands as a testament to the resilience of the city and its people and how hope can be found in the midst of tragedies as people come together on the Sacred Ground to find Common Ground. Kari and her husband Hardy have two kids Ford, a senior at Davidson College studying political science and economics who just finished his fourth year of D1 football and they didn’t miss a game and Caroline a sophomore Interior Design Architecture major at OU, their alma mater.