Jim Russell: Stopped Caring About Kent State
They were Jim Russell's "angels of mercy" -- two female nursing students in Lake Hall. After being shot in the right thigh, Russell was able to limp over to Lake Hall, but a counselor there grabbed him and wouldn't let him go anywhere as he dripped blood all over the floor. But the two nursing students pushed the counselor out of the way, supported Russell under each arm and helped him walk to the Health Center.
His arrival put the Health Center into a state of panic again because all the other ambulances had already left. Russell had to lie there and wait for an ambulance to be sent from Akron that would take him to St. Thomas Hospital.
After his leg was sewn up and an unsuccessful attempt was made to retrieve an elusive shot gun pellet from above his eye, Russell was told he was going to be released. But then he was told to get back into bed because he was going to be questioned. With the help of an orderly, he was able to escape.
About 4 p.m., Russell was back in Kent. He recalls that the place was "crawling with federal people." He had to go back to the Health Center because he left his wallet there.
Russell still remembers what it felt like when he was shot -- both physically and emotionally.
"I remember feeling like someone hit me in the head with a hammer," Russell says. "It caught me by surprise. I didn't think I was a threat. I didn't think I deserved to die."
But Russell recalls one evening after the shootings when he
was having dinner at a classmate's house. The classmate's father came home drunk and said the National Guard should have shot more students - and that included his son.
Russell, who had become friends with fellow wounded
student Joseph Lewis during the trials, listened to Lewis' advice to come to Oregon to visit. Originally from Mt. Lebanon, Pa., he moved to Oregon in 1975 to escape Kent's atmosphere and
attitude of denial.
The wounded (without John Cleary) attend the May 4 ceremony in 1985. Clockwise from back: Jim Russell, Joe Lewis, Scott MacKenzie, Doug Wrentmore, Tom Grace, Robert Stamps, Alan Canfora, Dean Kahler, and Elaine Holstein, mother of Jeff Miller. (Kent May 4 Center)
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"I came out here and was allowed to be a part of the system," says Russell, who lives about 50 miles north of Portland in St. Helens. "I knew that wouldn't happen in Ohio."
In fact, Russell recalls being treated like a political pariah by the local community and university. He and his father were fired from their jobs after it was discovered that Russell was shot at Kent State. Russell was working at a department store at the time.
"My dad lost his job because of it," he says. "Because I had a stigma. I was a political enemy of the nation. I was something bad."
Russell was in his fifth and senior year at Kent State when he was shot. He was planning to continue there at the graduate level. Russell, who was studying art and advertising, went to the dean of his college to settle the matter of his remaining required class.
"His comment to me was that they decided to give me my diploma in spite of that one requirement and that the university wanted me out."
But Russell has moved on. He had planned a future in advertising, but since 1975 he has been an architectural engineer, designing streets and buildings for his community and speaking at high schools with Joseph Lewis each year.
"The campus can burn down for all I care," he says. "I stopped caring about Kent State."
Russell now finds pleasure in seeing people in a building or park he designed and finds justice in the life of his daughter.
"I have tried to raise my daughter, who is my ideal of fairness and justice, to do good in the community and spot bullshit in the community," he says.
As a parent, Russell can't imagine how the parents of the four students killed dealt with that loss.
"I don't know how these folks handled the loss of their
children, especially when it was a safe zone," Russell says. "It was a place to send children for growth, not loss."
Being shot at Kent State has certainly altered Russell's life. He believes he might have pursued more individualistic goals instead of becoming a civil servant, and if not for the shootings, Russell might not have met his wife. Russell was introduced to his wife, also a Kent State student, by Lewis after the shootings.
But Russell says the shootings were a very small part of his campus life. He graduated shortly after and moved on with his life.
  
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