OKLAHOMA CITY - About two weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing, local business leaders eager to raise the town's profile hired a team of publicity specialists. Their assignment: Find a way to put the community on the map.

The New York public relations team designed a plan to boost the city's image and business prospects with writers' junkets, a speaking tour for the mayor and a campaign to tout successful entrepreneurs.

Then came April 19, 1995.

Oklahoma City suddenly was all too terribly on the map for millions of Americans inundated with heartbreaking scenes from the bombing that killed 168 people.

Now, one year later, the city's quest to establish a national image has become inalterably entwined with the terrorist attack - and that, ironically, has created new opportunity.

''It made people aware of who we are and where we are,'' said John Reid, marketing manager at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. ''Those are two things we constantly hear. It can't help but be effective.''

''No question doors have opened now more liberally,'' said Gov. Frank Keating, who has used the visibility gained during his dawn-to-dusk TV presence after the bombing to recruit business - an agenda he says he began before the explosion.

''Because Oklahoma presented itself so well in the tragedy, the sense of community, the professional standards ... there have been many companies throughout the U.S. that wanted to speak to me and take a look at Oklahoma,'' Keating said.

Since taking office in January 1995, the governor has been on the road 115 days, about half that time trying to drum up business for Oklahoma, the sixth-poorest state. During those trips, he frequently gives interviews about the bombing of the federal building.

''For those of us who lost friends,'' he said, ''it's appropriate and essential to try and see that some good come from this evil.''

Some relatives of bomb victims, however, say it smacks of opportunism, and they were angry not to be included in last fall's ''Thank You America'' tour, a four-city trip in which Keating and other political leaders paid tribute to out-of-state rescuers.

''There's a limit to how much you can milk the bombing,'' said Frosty Troy, editor of the weekly Oklahoma Observer. ''A lot of people would like to get this behind us.''

In promoting Oklahoma, the governor often works with Development Counselors International, the public relations firm hired by the Greater Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce and the state Commerce Department.

It has doggedly tried to spin positive post-bombing stories, courting reporters with dispatches detailing good economic news, commemorative caps for a new stadium, thank-you letters from the chamber and a pro-business video, produced before the explosion.