May 5

Today is the last day for me at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum . I have officially completed all required hours of my Internship to count for college credit from Gaylord college. It actually was a sad day, I got a little misty eyed on the way out. Through my internship there I have met a lot of great people and learned a lot in this position. I can not put into words how grateful I am to have been given the opportunity to be apart of this great staff! This is not the last the Memorial will see of Shayla Boone…. Signing off for now….

May 3

Hello Follower! Today I started the Memorial Minute for May and also I emailed a photo of one the essay winners to a proud parent. Other than that, I had an easy day the rest of the staff was in DC to view Clinton’s Museum. He is highlighting the Memorial in a special exhibit.

April 28

Today was our staff meeting and we discussed what all was done correctly during the weeks events and what we thought could be better or needed to be changed all together. I felt this meeting was very productive and it was great to see the recap of all the events. Plus we had pizza :o)

April 21

Today is the Reflections of Award dinner honoring President Bill Clinton. This event surpassed my expectations. This event was held at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was amazing to see this empty room transformed into a magical master piece! And I was apart of it!!! President Clinton spoke really well and the topic that he chose was very fitting. At this event I was still in charge of the media and this went extremely well we didn’t have any problems. I would say that this was the coolest event that I have been to, it was amazing to see all the who’s who of Oklahoma City in one room.

April 19th

The moment that we have all been waiting for!!!! Today my day started at 530 am. I arrived on site and took all of my materials that I would need to check the media in and out. The area for the media was around the Survivor tree; and we had this area blocked off with media only signs. It was cool out weather wise which was an added bonus because they told me that the year before it was freezing out. For the most part the media were very nice and respectful. Of course, the people that didn’t have their credentials verified and had waited to the last minute were a bit pushy and rude but I was able to control everybody and make sure that they were inline :o) The ceremony all together was awesome. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to be in this position and see all the people that came out. It was a very powerful atmosphere and it was very peaceful. It was nice to see Secretary of homeland Security Janet Napolitano and AAM director Ford Bell speak. The part that really had my choked up was the reading of the 168 names it was very sad, but I made it through without crying. After the ceremony, I packed all my items together and moved to the inside of the Memorial. The next event was the Media Symposium which featured Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, editor in large, Mark Helprin, and Mike Boettcher, a University of Oklahoma professor. This event was really great and I thought it was a cool little setup, very intimate. All and all this day was such a great experience for me! I could not have interned at a better place and I thank Kari for the opportunity to be a part of the team.

April 18

The day before the anniversary!! I am so excited! I came to the Memorial today to see where I will be positioned at and what all my job entails. For the ceremony I will taking care of all the media. That means that I will be checking all the media badges making sure that only the ones that are credentialed get in the media area and also make sure that they are being taken care of and just answering any questions that they may be having. This was a pretty smooth day but the anticipation is killing me! I have to be onsite at 530 that is when the media will start arriving therefore I need to be in position waiting for them.

April 14

Today I assembled all the media badges together so we could easily and quickly identify who was credentialed media and who was not. This is going to be very important because on the 19^th we do not want just anyone coming and shooting video on the site. You have to follow the rules if you want to play; so this will help us keep security tight around the site. I also got together all the media bags. Kari thought that it would be a good idea to have a little keepsake for all the affiliates. In these bags we had items that were donated and some that we included: hats, pens, mints, magnets, reporter notebooks, 15^th anniversary lapel pins, program of events for the ceremonies, media badges, and also thumb drive press kits. The jump drive press kits was something new for the Memorial this year, in the spirit of trying to save paper they decide to put them on the thumb drives, and I might add they were a big hit! But I must admit these lil bags and badges took way longer than I thought it would. I never really thought about the person who normally takes the time to do tedious acts like this, and I must admit I have a new appreciation for them now. A big Thank you to all administrative assistants across the world! You are appreciated.

April 12

Today was a pretty heavy writing day for me. Next Monday is the 15^th anniversary! Literally 7 days away and the synergy is really picking up around here now. Today I am preparing the final round of the email blast to be sent all to all the people that will be running in the 10^th annual Marathon. This email blast contains information on the expo, start and end times, course changes, and just general info for the event. This pretty much took all of my day. Gathering the information was the most challenging part of it all the rest kind of just fell into place.

4-5-10, 4-7-10

Hello Follower!!! This week at the Memorial was pretty calm for me surprisingly! I went to archives to get some supers(titles) for a film the Memorial is producing, corrected the transcription I made in January because I accidently switched around a couple of names,and accuracy is a must!, and also helped start the Marathon newsletter email blast for next week. Other than that pretty relaxing week!

3-15-10,3-17-10,3-22-10,3-24-10,3-29-10,3-31-10

Hello followers! Or should I say Follower! I know I have been slacking a bit here so I am grouping all of March together. YAYAYAY! March was a semi busy month because the 15th Anniversary is coming in April!! Therefore during this time I emailed the 2010 essay winners through Vocus, attended a media meeting (for the media to know where they will be positioned for the 19th and how to get their credentials), PR meeting with Jordan Associates, and created the currently schedule for the month of April. This is everything in a nutshell. I want to encourage everyone to come out and support the Memorial at the 15th anniversary ceremonies! Also, Bill Clinton will be the recipient for the Reflections of Hope award on April the 21st!! Come and support and for more information visit oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org

Research!!!! (03-01-10,03-03-10)

This week at the Memorial was sort of calm. I completed contacting the print publications to see when the deadlines would be for their April Issue and completed the Memorial Minute for March. We had a print publication deadline on friday which we met and a couple more this upcoming week on Monday and Wednesday. I am really excited about the upcoming events that we have leading up until the 15th anniversary. Make sure that you stay following to see what and when the upcoming events are!!!

Communications (2-22-10, 2-24-10)

This week went to gearing up for the 15th anniversary. Kari Watkins, my boss, created a list of the print publications that she wanted me to contact for deadlines to pitch stories. I began the search through Vocus, which is a like a media database, to find the contact information for the list. I called everyone from the Journal Record to the NY Times. This was a great experience for me because it showed me how to look up media contacts as well as what questions to ask for when wanting to pitch a story in their publication. One key thing that I learned from this is that most magazine publication want pitch stories for events that are at least three months away, this is very important information.

I also created the rough draft of the March Memorial Minute and contacted Kurt at KGOU for the first person interviews they want to broadcast.

Interview transcription (2-7-10, 2-8-10, 2-10-10)

This week was extremely stressful!!!! Well let me start by saying it was stressful because i made it that way. Every year I say that I am going to work on my Procrastation and I never do; and this is me showing it at its finest. This week I was assigned to transcribe the interviews that we conducted the previous week. I had great intentions on transcribing 4 people a day which would have given me 5 days to complete it. No biggy, just before bed or in my down time I could do a few. Well that did NOT happen and I had to rush and do all of them in two days. Any one who has transcribed before knows that this is a long process that should not be put off. But in the end I did get it done, after locking myself in my office for 5 straight hours, just coming out long enough to use the bathroom, I was able to complete the task. The moral of the story is not to procrastinate ever again!!! well at least not on transcription :o)

Clinton/Communications ( 2-1-10, 2-3-10)

Last week I edited a press release about the Clinton exhibit in Little Rock Arkansas. This was very important to the museum because artifacts were shared with the Clinton Presidential . I also had a communication team meeting. In this meeting we discussed what PR plans that we wanted to implement as far as when to send releases out, who to send them to, and what content was going to be in each of them. This meeting was very interesting to me because it allowed me to see the PR campaign in the beginning stages, which in turn helps me better understand what I need to do for the company and see the main picture more clearly.

Marathon meeting and Memorial Minute

Last week was an interesting week for me at the Memorial! Monday was a very busy day. I had a meeting with the 'Marathon committee' about the marketing and PR for the marathon, escorted a film crew around the Museum, and completed the Memorial newsletter for February. The most challenging thing that I had this week was the newsletter. Writing the newsletter already makes me nervous because I know that what I write is a reflection on the Memorial and hundreds if not thousands of people are going to read this publication. This week was extremely stressful because the publication was not completely finished when the Graphic Designer guy got there so I had to scramble to finish so it could be formatted. After the formatting is completed, a copy of the publication is given to me, Kari( My Boss), and Two other employees for proofing. This process is completed about 3 times before the final copy is fully laid and posted. The challenge for this week came in the proofing process. Everyone makes suggestions as to what you wrote that they don't like and also of grammatical errors; and it be came hard to please everyone on the suggestions. At the end of the day everything worked out and everyone was happy. Check out the Memorial Minute in February!!!

Photo and Video shoot!!

Today was very fun and exciting!!! Today was the photoshoot and the video recording of the survivors, rescue workers, and the surviving family members from the bombing. My role in this event was to ask questions to the interviewees so they could tell their perspective of the bombing and the moments immediately following. I must admit that I was very nervous when asked to be the interviewer for the videos because I had never done anything like this before. I feel that interviewing is an acquired skill because it takes a lot for people to come out of their comfort zone and talk about something as horrific as the bombing also because it's all lights, camera, action; which can make some feel uncomfortable. The experience as a whole taught me a lot about interacting with people and how to interview. I was able to meet several wonderful people that my path might not have crossed without being involved in my internship and I am grateful for that.