Volunteers who gathered Thursday in the Spokane Convention Center had their own reasons for helping assemble the AIDS memorial quilt.

Some had friends or family members who died from the disease. Others wanted to promote AIDS awareness and education.

Mel Klohn, 52, came to see his wife’s handiwork.

Cricket Klohn sewed a section of quilt in memory of their son Kevin, who died in 1993 at the age of 25. Mel Klohn, a geologist, was traveling when the 3-by-6-foot section was dedicated last year in Houston.

The couple moved to Spokane six months ago when his firm relocated.

“I’ve never seen it,” said Klohn. “We looked at the list of cities getting the quilt and we see Spokane. It’s like the quilt was meant to be here so we could see it.”

The couple called The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt Foundation in San Francisco and asked if their son’s panel could come to them.

Thursday morning, Kevin Klohn’s panel was lifted from a shipping box and unfolded on the convention center floor.

Kevin Klohn’s mother gave in to her relief. “Oh, hi Kevin,” she wept. The couple held each other tightly.

Cataloging and storing the 32,000 quilt panels is a full-time job for The NAMES Project Foundation. Each panel is bundled by region and the cities and zip codes of quilters and the AIDS victims are kept in a database.

The Klohns can testify the system works.

Kevin Klohn’s panel includes references to the languages he spoke: German, Spanish and French, as well as the flags of states where he lived. There’s an imprint of the state of Texas and the logos from choir concerts in which he sang as a child in Montana and Wyoming.

Each corner has signatures from friends and relatives. “We passed it through the mail so everyone could sign,” said Cricket Klohn.

The panel has an insignia of a Macintosh computer with the red ribbon symbol that has become the symbol of activism surrounding AIDS.

Kevin Klohn spent hours on a computer designing the red ribbon logo for an AIDS fund-raiser in Houston. It quickly became a symbol of the national movement to curb the disease, which has killed 3 million people worldwide.

The Spokane AIDS Network raised $22,000 through a fun run, dinners, a silent auction and other events to pay the cost of displaying the quilt here. The money goes for everything from rental of the convention center to the plastic connectors that tie the panels together.

Volunteers learned Thursday the process is not as easy as it looks.

“Just remember if we put it together with huge wrinkles it will be that way the whole display,” they were told by Cathy Johnson, the display coordinator who volunteers with the project in San Francisco. “The reason we don’t have our shoes on is it is impossible to put the quilt together without walking on it.”

A frog, hats, leather gloves, photos, a passport, a red dress shirt, handkerchief and tie clip, a driver’s license, and a handball glove are all items on quilt panels. One panel has a bowling shirt, another a Raggedy Ann.

Once dedicated, each panel is examined in San Francisco. Buttons are glued, seams reinforced. When defects are noted on the road at displays, volunteers make notes, which go to San Francisco so quilt staffers can undertake repairs.

Proper storage is especially important. “I’m very careful how I pack the quilt up. It has to be folded perfectly before I let it go back,” said Johnson.

The entire quilt now covers 13 acres - about 12 football fields. Organizers plan to piece it together in its entirety Oct. 11-13 in Washington, D.C.

Several dozen communities opt to display a small portion of the quilt every year.

“Those panels will never be seen this way again. The reason these panels are here is because someone wants to see them,” said Johnson.

When the quilt came to Spokane in 1993 there were 640 pieces patched together. This weekend, there are 960 pieces in 28 separate quilts.

One of those panels is in honor of Richard Gunby, 26, a graduate of University High School who died of AIDS in 1992.

His parents, Jim and Joan Gunby, were coordinating the walkways and helping connect panels at the convention center.

“The panel was kind of therapy for us,” said Joan Gunby. “It helps a lot to do this.”

Jim Gunby hopes the exhibit can increase awareness about AIDS. “It’s here,” he said. “Just because this is Spokane doesn’t mean it’s not here.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE QUILT The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt can be viewed from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Spokane Convention Center. A dedication ceremony for new panels will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday.