My 2 Cents: When Doing the Mundane, Do Your Best

By Kelly Ogle, News 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- On Tuesday I went along on a field trip with a bunch of seventh graders to the bombing museum. Charlie Hanger was the featured speaker. His talk reminded me, that even when doing the mundane, do your best.

On the morning of April 19th, 1995, Charlie Hanger was a Highway Patrolman up around Perry. After the bomb went at the Murrah Federal Building, he'd been ordered to Oklahoma City but then was told to return to his regular patrol.

On his drive back he spotted an old yellow car with no tag. He stopped it and ordered the driver to get out. The man wasn't at all threatening, but then the trooper noticed a bulge in his jacket.

Hanger grabbed it and the man admitted he had a gun. The trooper ordered him to turn around and put his hands on the car, the motorist told him the gun was loaded.

By that point Hanger had his own gun to the back of the man's neck, and replied, "So is mine."

That was the most dramatic moment in the arrest of Timothy McVeigh. Later Hanger drove a chatty McVeigh to Perry and booked him into jail on misdemeanors. For two days he had no idea the man he'd arrested had blown up 168 people.

There other lawmen were working the biggest act of domestic terrorism just 60 miles away, and Hanger's stopping an old clunker with no tag.

It was routine, but he did it perfectly with attention to detail just as he'd been trained, and he arrested a terrorist.

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