Lapel pins on sale at a Bashas’ grocery store near you offer nearly everything a patriotic Arizonan could want.
The items, $5 each, show the Twin Towers and the Pentagon rising above an Arizona silhouette.
Proceeds will help build a state memorial for those who died Sept. 11 in the terrorist attacks, and Gov. Janet Napolitano has asked Arizonans to dig deep.
She even attended a kickoff event last month, where members of a special commission formed to build the memorial made a point of telling reporters that the pins were made by a Tucson firm.
On Friday they adjusted that claim.
Although the pins were ordered in Tucson, the jewelry was actually made overseas. In China, specifically.
Billy Shields, a member of the memorial commission, said he did not know until the pins were already ordered — and, in fact, on their way to the commission — that they were not being made in Tucson.
Napolitano said no one told her before the kickoff event about the Chinese connection. But she said the origin of the jewelry should not make any difference.
"The major point is to raise money so that Arizona would have a 9/11 memorial so that future generations will remember what happened on 9/11 and how many lives were affected and how it changed life in our country,’’ she said. "People ought to keep their eye on the ball: What’s the memorial for."
About 4,000 pins have been sold so far.
