Duane Puryear made a panel for himself, which hung at the Resource Center for a couple of years. He took this panel to Washington for the first quilt display on the Mall.

On the way home from Washington, he left it in the overhead bin and it was never seen again.

However, there were a number of pictures of the panel. After he died, his mom recreated the original panel from pictures.

The panel displayed in the quilt is the recreation his mom made. The new panel hung at the Resource Center until it was inducted into the quilt in a ceremony at Fair Park.

Because of its powerful, yet simple message, this remains the most requested panel in the quilt.

Also in this block are other Dallas panels.

Don Weiner was president of Congregation Beth El Binah. He applied for the group to become a member of the Union for Reform Judaism but died before the predominantly gay and lesbian synagogue was accepted into the mainstream movement in 1993. The half star was the synagogue’s logo at the time.

The AIDS Mastery Workshop was a group that met at the Resource Center and helped people deal with their diagnosis at a time when there were no drugs to treat HIV.

— David Taffet

Tags: AIDS quilt, Names Project

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