Contact: Char Kopchick, (740) 593-4742, or Richard Compson Sater, (740) 797-0400 or rs288186@oak.cats.ohiou.edu

Editors: A photo of Sater's silkscreen record cover can be downloaded from the Web at www.ohiou.edu/news/pix/QUILT.JPG Images of quilt panels that will be on display can be downloaded from the AIDS quilt website at www.aidsquilt.org by doing a search for panel numbers 2379, 1912, 1116, 2445, 2372 and 4654.

ATHENS, Ohio (April 20, 2000) -- Ohio University graduate student Richard Compson Sater saw the AIDS Memorial Quilt for the first time a year ago. Amazed at the raw emotion evoked by the quilt's personal messages, he was inspired to become active in the project and create a unique recording to raise money for its local display May 2 through 5.

"Art represents who we are and what's important to us, and sometimes you get art with a conscience, such as the AIDS quilt," said Sater, a comparative arts major. "I hope it makes you cry -- it should. When I first saw it, I was amazed by the sheer emotion of it, but it left me angered over the way AIDS has been handled in this country."

Sater is a member of the Central Ohio NAMES Project, a local chapter of the national organization that conceived the idea for the AIDS quilt in 1987. After seeing part of the 43,000-panel quilt in Columbus, he began working with Ohio University Director of Health Education and Wellness Char Kopchick to bring a 200-panel section to the university's Convocation Center.

Each of the quilt's 3-by-6-foot panels memorializes someone who has died of AIDS. Many of the panels coming to campus were created by Ohio residents, including families from southeastern Ohio. Kopchick hopes the quilt sends a message that although drug treatments for HIV are improving, the virus still kills.

"I think that as a society, we've become complacent," Kopchick says. "We have now been living with HIV and AIDS for 20 years. We hear statistics and forget about the people behind the statistics and the fact that this syndrome can impact and affect anybody. That's the reason for bringing it here -- putting faces and names behind the numbers."

To raise money for the NAMES Project, Sater has cut a forty-five record with several songs by him and other musicians and designed a silkscreen fabric cover that will be stitched to the record's sleeve. He's selling the records for $5 each at the quilt display and various Uptown businesses. Sater chose the forty-five format because it represents a period in the 1980s when many popular musicians made records to raise money for famine relief in Africa.

"Nobody ever did an AIDS forty-five, probably because there was this stigma that only gay people or drug-users had the virus, and people didn't want to align themselves with that," he said. "Besides, I want to make people think. If you pop a CD in your stereo, you're not going to think about it as much."

The record includes two '80s pop-style songs written and performed by Sater as well as an AIDS education message from Sater accompanied by music from The Lark Quartet. The record is titled "The Wrong Man," which symbolizes the denial that still exists about the disease.

"It's like saying 'it's never going to happen to me' or 'you've got the wrong guy,'" he said. "People think that it's obsolete, that it was an '80s thing."

During the quilt's display, visitors can sign panels, learn about the history of the quilt and the HIV virus and listen as names of AIDS victims are continuously read during display hours. The opening ceremony is from 7 to 8 p.m. May 2, with a quilt display from 8 to 10 p.m. The quilt also will be exhibited from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. May 3, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. May 4 and from 10 a.m. to noon May 5, with the closing ceremony from noon to 1 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.