TRR photo by Tom Kane Honesdale High School students Amy Osmunson, Tammy Schmitt, Zachary Stuart-Pontier and Ian Pugh view AIDS Quilt panels. (Click for larger image)

Famed AIDS Quilt visits Honesdale

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE — Fourth and eighth grade students from five schools of the Wayne Highlands School District filed into the Honesdale High School gymnasium to view 21, 12 feet x 12 feet quilt panels memorializing those who have died of AIDS, many of them from the northeast Pennsylvania.

The section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt was on display on April 27 and 28 at the high school.

The AIDS Quilt began in 1987 in San Francisco when family and friends of people who had died of AIDS began making quilt panels that contained personal items from the victims’ lives.

So far, 42,960 panels from throughout the country have been sewn and included in the Quilt. More than 83,000 names appear on these panels.

“When the students came into the gym, they suddenly grew silent when they saw the quilts,” said junior Amy Osmunson. “It was like they were entering church. They were so impressed.”

Cathy Card, health and physical education teacher at Honesdale High School, and other faculty got the idea for the project as an activity for the school’s National Honor Society.

“The students formed a committee and promoted the project in the school and in the community,” Card said. “All district schools—elementary, middle and high—were contacted by the students, who sent materials garnered from the Quilt Project.”

Projects were organized in the various departments of the school to bring AIDS education into the classroom. Individual department heads and classroom teachers decided how, Card said.

“Kay Daly, infection control nurse from Wayne Memorial Hospital, came into my health classroom today and talked to the students on HIV,” she said. Other teachers brought in speakers as well.

Instruction included prevention of HIV and AIDS and the practice of safe sex, Card said.

Marlon Barry Snyder of the Susquehanna Valley NAMES Project said the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project has 36 international affiliates.

Some of the names of famous people that appear on the quilts are: musician Liberace, graffiti artist Keith Haring, attorney Roy Cohn, actor Barry Davis, fashion designer Halston, actor Rock Hudson, ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev, actor Anthony Perkins and philosopher Michael Foucault.

“AIDS is beyond an epidemic now,” Snyder said. “It’s now a pandemic.”

More information on the AIDS Memorial Quilt can be found at www.aidsquilt.org or by e-mailing info@aidsquilt.org. The Susquehanna Valley Chapter can be reached at b234der@aol.com.