OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Collected quarters from all 50 states?

Now you’ll have the chance to do it all again.

Beginning in 2010, the U.S. Mint will begin producing quarters showing a national site from each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and each U.S. territory – Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. George Washington’s image will be on the other side.

Governors are being asked to recommend sites for representation on the quarter. The U.S. Treasury will make the final decision on designs, which are to be announced later this month.

Last year, the U.S. Mint completed its 10-year state quarter program, which it called the most popular coin program in history. Quarters were issued in the order each state joined the union, with five releases a year at intervals of about 10 weeks.

The new program, created under “America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008” will also release five new quarters per year. They will be issued in the order in which each site was first established as a national site.

Gov. Brad Henry said Thursday that he has selected the Oklahoma City National Memorial as the image to appear on Oklahoma’s new quarter. The memorial is on the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was bombed on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500 others.

“The Oklahoma City National Memorial is a powerful and resonant testament to the character of our great state and its people,” Henry said.

Henry specifically favors putting the memorial’s Survivor Tree on the Oklahoma quarter, saying it shows the resiliency of Oklahomans after the bombing.

The tree is an American elm that was defoliated by the blast in downtown Oklahoma City, but survived and is one of the most popular attractions at the memorial site. Seeds from the Survivor Tree have been given to people around the world.

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