When Bud Welch lost his 23-year-old daughter, Julie, in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, he was consumed by grief at the loss of his only daughter and rage toward the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh. Over time, however, Welch discovered that his anger wasn’t helping him to heal. Connecting with McVeigh’s father, Bill, he found peace and argued against McVeigh’s execution. Jeanne Bishop ’81, ’84 JD, a Cook County assistant public defender, explores the friendship between these two fathers in her new book, Grace from the Rubble: Two Fathers’ Road to Reconciliation After the Oklahoma City Bombing (2020). Bishop has dealt with tragedy in her own life. She lost her sister, Nancy, her brother-in-law and the couple’s unborn child to murder in 1990. Bishop’s first book, Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer (2015), discusses her journey toward forgiveness.
Hollywood Producer Expands Dramatic Writing Program
Greg Berlanti, a writer, producer and director and 1994 School of Communication alumnus, and his husband, former professional soccer player Robbie Rogers, recently made a $2 million gift to the school via the Berlanti Family Foundation. The gift will endow a professorship and help expand opportunities for students interested in writing for the screen and stage.
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