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Ryan White's Funeral Attendance
The preparations involved 48 hours of mad scrambling.
A grand piano was rented and tuned for Elton John. A secure waiting room was chosen for first lady Barbara Bush. An entryway without a canopy into the Second Presbyterian Church was identified so that Michael Jackson, who avoided canopies, would enter.
And Ryan White, the frail Indiana teenager who had become the heroic and heartbreaking face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, was laid out in a coffin of knotty pine.
TV trucks lined up on Meridian Street for a half mile. CNN cameras took position inside the sanctuary. The network, then the only 24-hour television news operation, would broadcast the funeral live in just moments. Fifteen hundred mourners were seated in the pews.
Then one final kerfuffle. A member of Jackson's entourage approached a pair of harried, sleep-deprived funeral organizers with news that the King of Pop needed to use the restroom. What would go down, 25 years ago Saturday, as one of Indianapolis' more colossal, star-studded events would be a couple of minutes late getting started.
...The funeral was [on Wednesday] at 2 p.m. at Second Presbyterian, a cathedral of a place built in the Baroque style. Dozens of reporters clustered around the church entrance. A choir from Ryan's high school, Hamilton Heights, was in the sanctuary practicing "That's What Friends Are For."
And here came the celebrities: the football star Howie Long, the talk show host Phil Donahue, John, Jackson and Bush.
...The service ended with the church organist launching into Charles-Marie Widor's "Organ Symphony Number 5," which was Roberts' cue to approach Bush and escort her from the sanctuary. Per Secret Service protocol, she was to be first out.
"It was all worked out ahead of time, and everyone knew," Roberts says.
But in the drama of the moment Jackson, perhaps blanking on the drill, stood and offered his hand to Ryan's mother. The two created a logjam in the narrow aisle, hemming in the first lady.
Roberts gave Jackson an eye roll as if to say, "Really?" — a move CNN's cameras must have picked up because Roberts' friends watching from home later asked him: "How mad were you at Michael Jackson?"
"I was perturbed," Roberts says, "but it worked out fine."
Ryan's casket was loaded into a hearse, and 187 cars followed it for 25 miles to a Hamilton County cemetery. The motorcade itself was a feat, involving at least six local law-enforcement agencies.
For [Jeanne] White-Ginder [(Ryan’s mother)], the motorcade in a way was the best part. The former General Motors assembly line worker had been fussed over by Michael Jackson, Elton John and Barbara Bush. The governor of Indiana had ordered flags lowered to half-staff in honor of her son. But now came a broader embrace.
"All the way to Cicero," White-Ginder says, "cars were pulled off the highways, and people stood outside their cars and were saluting Ryan, like a military salute.
"That was the most moving moment. Highway 31. People saluting.
"Just everyday people, saluting Ryan."
Ann Marie Cunningham, co-author, “Ryan White: My Own Story” (epilogue)
As Ryan had asked, he was dressed in his jeans and jean jacket, a surf shirt, sneakers, his favourite reflecting glasses, and the watch Michael had given him.
The morning of the funeral, April 11, was cold, windy, and drizzly. Outside the largest church in Indianapolis, long lines of people in their best clothes waited to view Ryan's body. Since Ryan never took his fame seriously, Jeanne thought he'd be astonished. She said, “I bet he was looking down and laughing. He must have been saying, 'I can't believe all you silly people are getting wet to see me’.”