Oklahoma City memorial offers cell phone tours

Staff and Wire Reports

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Visitors to the Oklahoma City National Memorial now can use their cell phones to learn about the site's significance.

The service began yesterday and allows visitors to dial a phone number and get an audio tour of the memorial. The tour is voiced by the site's designers Hans and Torrey Butzer.

Hans Butzer said he hopes the audio tour will help enhance the experience of visitors to the memorial, which he said is designed to teach that goodness always will prevail eventually.

Kari Watkins, the memorial's executive director, said the new service has been planned for about a year.

The audio tour is being funded by a $25,000 grant from the AT&T Foundation.

The memorial is dedicated to those affected by the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The bombing killed 168 people in what remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

About a half-million visitors, from across the United States and over 90 countries, come to the memorial each year.

To hear the audio tour, call 405-445-4792.