Kari Watkins: Woman of Influence

We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.

It’s not that Kari Watkins was downplaying the unprecedented logistical juggernaut of postponing, rescheduling and ultimately taking the 2020 running of the internationally acclaimed Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon virtual, it’s more that the purity of her organization’s mission makes daunting decisions simple and clear, even if they are difficult. Everything about the organization is a collaboration of community volunteers, family members, survivors and first responders who helped build and continue to maintain its mission.

Photo by Randy Coleman

“We just had to put the right attitude on, be respectful and honor the families and survivors. We were not the only ones facing obstacles. Everyone has had obstacles this year,” Watkins said. She’s been the executive director of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum since 1999; her career with the nonprofit began in 1996, when she became the director of communications, the organization’s first paid staff position. Today she directs a staff of 28.

You could say the woman and the institution have grown up together. Watkins was just 30 years old when she took the communications job, and in the decades between now and then she’s overseen the community process, fundraising and construction of the Outdoor Symbolic Memorial, with its Field of Empty Chairs, Reflecting Pool, Children’s Area and Rescuers’ Orchard; the fundraising, visioning and construction of the Museum, with its 35 interactive features as well as hundreds of hours of video and artifacts which show visitors incredibly personal and humanizing detail; and the launch of the Memorial Marathon as well as numerous additional fundraising efforts and educational initiatives.

She also reconnected with a classmate and former colleague, now her husband of 21 years, Hardy Watkins, during her tenure. The pair had met when both were journalism students at the University of Oklahoma and later worked together as news producers at Oklahoma City’s KFOR-TV. As Kari was undertaking the task of overseeing the construction of the Memorial and Museum, the pair’s paths crossed again and never uncrossed. Hardy was the owner’s representative for the Memorial and Museum. The couple has two children Ford, a college student and Caroline, in high school.

In 2001, the first Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon was run. That year, nearly 5,000 people participated. Now, more than 25,000 runners from around the world have come to Oklahoma City each April to run the marathon or to take part in one of the four other races. In 2020, the running components of the race went virtual and a cycling element was added; Watkins says discussions are underway to retain cycling for 2021.

Watkins has overseen the creation of countless educational programs, field trips, essay contests, lesson plans, conferences, events and activities designed to educate people of all ages about what happened in Oklahoma City, why it happened, and why the threat of terrorism, domestic or otherwise, will continue as long as we accept divisiveness as the norm.

“We work to find common ground on sacred ground,” Watkins says. “We ought to always be a place where people can come together. We can’t ever forget what we’ve done. Together. The bomb didn’t discriminate. It killed people who were rich, poor, black, white, brown...people from different parts of town…168 people of all kinds. An American soldier attacked his own government. That was unheard of. But people came together and they are still coming together. I take all of that really personally. We can’t give up just because times are hard.”

And she certainly has not. In April, the Memorial will complete its latest multi-million dollar campaign to continue the dialogue with each visitor it encounters. Co-chaired by Sally Starling, whose mother Polly Nichols is a survivor and long-time Memorial & Museum trustee, and former Oklahoma Attorney General and fundraising guru Mike Turpen, the $10 million campaign is entitled “Looking Back, Thinking Forward.”

The fundraising initiative will, through new programs and platforms, continue to deliver the Museum’s crucial messages. Through comprehensive curriculum and cutting-edge new programs designed for young and old alike, we can become a global thought leader on healing, forgiveness, strength and resilience in the wake of tragedy (from the Memorial and Museum’s website).

Fundraising is an ongoing effort, perhaps made more so during times like these. Without it, the organization would not exist. Although the Memorial & Museum enjoys an excellent partnership with the U.S. National Parks Service, there is no annual appropriation from it or any government agency to sustain it. “The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum does not receive any annual operating funds from the federal, state or local government. Museum admissions, store sales, the OKC Memorial Marathon, earnings from an endowment and private fundraising allow the Memorial & Museum to be self-sustaining,” Watkins says.

Under Watkins’ leadership, the Museum has won numerous awards, including The Videographer Award of Excellence, a Gold American Alliance of Museums MUSE, the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award, and multiple Addys, PRSA Awards, and OklahomaTourism RedBud Awards.

Watkins’ personal honors include being named the 2000 Women in Communications Byliner Award, the 2005 Journal Record Woman of the Year, the 2006 Stanley Draper Award for Community Excellence, the 2011 University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism Distinguished Alumni Award, 2016 Lee Allan Smith Oklahoma Legacy Award and the 2017 John F. Kennedy Community Service Award. She serves as a commissioner for the OKC Convention and Visitors Bureau, on the MAPS3 Scissortail Park Sub-Committee, on the Board of Visitors for the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism & Mass Communications, an elder at Crossings Community Church and an active member of the Casady Parents’ Organization.

Watkins is unflagging in her devotion to the people who are the foundation of the Memorial, many of whom were either present or had family members near or inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building for that awful detonation in 1995. There’s a tragic ongoing lesson here; it is what drives Watkins each and every day to ensure that we all have the opportunity to learn and grow from it.

“We’ve got to do better,” she says. “We’ve got to be willing to meet in the middle of the street. We can do better. It’s within us.”