AIDS Victims Remembered as Quilt Panels Are Unveiled

The first five panels of the Ventura County AIDS quilt were unveiled at a candlelight vigil Saturday at Plaza Park in Ventura. About 80 people gathered to remember Ventura County’s AIDS victims with songs, poems and prayers before making a procession down Thompson Boulevard.

The event was sponsored by AIDS Care of Ventura County to highlight October as AIDS Awareness Month, organizers said.

“This is the third AIDS vigil,” said Jackson Wheeler, a member of the AIDS Care board of directors. “I regret to say we will probably have more of them.”

At least one participant was disappointed by the turnout. “There are many horrors of AIDS,” said Reese Welsh, director of AIDS Care. “One of them is that there are not thousands of people here. Society needs to say, ‘AIDS is killing people and we need to do something about it.’ ”

The five colorful quilt panels were made by a team of four volunteers. “These panels show how important these people were in our lives,” quilt coordinator Mark Lager said. He said he hoped to see the panels tour Ventura County to increase public awareness of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which he said has taken the lives of 172 county residents.

One Ventura resident said that people should set their judgments aside when dealing with AIDS victims. “I get so tired of society’s attitude,” said Mimi Buehler, 40.

Although she has lost no relatives to AIDS, Buehler said a long battle with breast cancer had given her an appreciation of the pain--but not the rejection--that AIDS victims suffer. “I’ve never seen anything like the horror of the way our society treats AIDS victims,” Buehler said. “We need to put aside our judgments about right and wrong, and deal with the problem.”