Kent Twenty Five

Michael Erwin

About two months before May 1970, Michael Erwin and a friend were in an Army surplus store in Akron that had gas masks on sale. Erwin, who was a sophomore history major at the time, bought one without any real intent of using it. And then came May 4.

Knowing that tear gas had been used all throughout the first weekend of May 1970, Erwin took his mask along with him to the rally on Monday.

"When the National Guard started shooting tear gas, I thought it was my duty to put on the mask and start throwing the things back," says Erwin, who graduated from Kent State in 1979 with a degree in nursing and works as a management development specialist for the Cleveland Clinic.

"And that probably helped me get indicted."

But that wasn't the only act that landed him in the Kent 25. While at home in Hudson on the evening of May 4, he was watching the news with his mother, and he told her they weren't showing things the way they really happened. Her advice to him: Write a letter.

"I sent a letter to Nixon and Rhodes and whoever my congressman was," Erwin says. "I sent one to (Kent State) President White. And before I knew it, I had FBI agents and everyone under the sun coming to talk to me."

And after Erwin testified before the special grand jury at the courthouse in Ravenna, he had a good idea the indictment was on its way.

"The lawyers weren't too bad about asking us questions," he says. "But I knew I was in trouble when they turned the questioning over to the grand jury. Probably a half dozen of those people stood up and told me what a scum I was. I remember telling my dad as we were leaving, 'I'm going to get indicted here. They're trying to pin this on the students.'"

But in the end, the charge of second-degree riot against Erwin was dropped before he went to trial.

Although Erwin lives in Kent, he doesn't participate in the commemorations.

"I don't go near the university for any of the anniversaries," he says. "I also try to avoid the newspapers because I always know there will be a story about it. Below the surface that nerve is still very raw."

-- Erin Kosnac

Craig A. Morgan

For Craig A. Morgan, the dark cloud surrounding May 4 had a silver lining.

"It may have gotten me into Yale Law School," confesses the former Green Beret and student body president during fall quarter 1970.

Morgan, 51, was charged with second-degree riot in the days following May 4, but the case did not go to trial because "the prosecutors didn't want to waste their time," he says.

Morgan, along with other students and faculty, was trying to organize peace marshals, who were to stand between the protesters and the Ohio National Guard in an attempt to calm everyone down, when they saw the protest was getting out of hand.

"It was probably the most colossal failure in my life," he says. Morgan supposes that while he was trying to get the marshals in place, he was captured in a series of photos. He says those pictures may have led to his second-degree riot charge.

"I think so, but who knows? I would like to think not," he says. "Maybe it was just because I was there"

After graduating from Kent State and spending nine years in the Army, Morgan applied to Yale. Little did he know that his application was reviewed by Drew Days, the Ivy League school's law professor who had filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the NAACP in defense of the students' rights. Morgan says the U.S. Supreme Court brief was related to the NAACP's claim that an "uncivilized, unprepared" National Guard on the Kent State campus violated the civil rights of students.

"I saw these stacks of applications on his desk when I went into his office to talk with him about one of my classes," he says. "He told me, 'Yours was in that stack last year.' I think he may have recognized my name (on the law school application) as being the person he wrote the brief for."

Morgan, who now lives in Austin, Texas, has been in practice since 1984 and is now working as an appellate lawyer. And to think, he may owe his profession to a tragic outcome of the spring of 1970.

"It was an odd fluke," he admits. "That is trivial in comparison to the importance of the event that occurred."

-- Shawn Turner

Joe Cullum

Joe Cullum gives first aid to John Cleary moments after the shootings. (Photo by Howard Ruffner)

Joe Cullum and two other students were photographed as they knelt in the grass next to wounded student John Cleary. Cullum used his T-shirt to slow the bleeding from Cleary's chest. The picture appeared on the May 15, 1970, cover of Life magazine.

Twenty years later, Life brought Cleary and Cullum together in a follow-up article.

"I guess you're responsible for my still being here," Cleary said to Cullum when they shook hands for the first time.

Cullum welcomes the opportunity to talk about May 4, 1970. It's natural for him to value the legacy of what happened -- he teaches history, government and economics to juniors and seniors at Minerva High School in Stark County. With his wife, Ruth and son, Sam, 11, Cullum lives on 15 acres in an 1850s farmhouse near Limaville. Apathy, now as it was then, is a major concern for Cullum.

"The things we learn from May 4 are that these kinds of things can happen again if people get apathetic about the power of the state -- if we don't rein it in," Cullum says. The right to dissent, the right to disagree, is of paramount importance to Cullum, who feels that the shooting was an intentional act orchestrated from above. "Part of my role of being an eyewitness is teaching the people that it wasn't an isolated incident," he says.

Less bitter now over negative comments about the student protesters, Cullum still laments the attitude of many Americans that their government can do no wrong.

After working til midnight in Canton on Friday and Saturday, Cullum returned to campus Sunday night, May 3, 1970. He demonstrated with hundreds of students that night at Lincoln and Main streets, demanding an audience with Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom and Kent State President Robert White.

Students were told their concerns would be heard if they returned to campus, but the National Guard chased them. Cullum says he and others were clubbed as they dispersed, and that another student was struck with a bayonet.

On May 4, Cullum, a junior, was standing by the metal sculpture outside Taylor Hall, about 50 feet away from guardsmen when they began firing.

"Everyone who was wounded or killed was behind me," he says. "I didn't see a need to fire. I didn't see a threat."

The next day, Tuesday, May 5, Cullum registered as a Republican in the primary election so he could vote against Gov. James A. Rhodes, who subsequently lost a tight race against U.S. Rep. Robert Taft for the Republican nomination for the U. S. Senate.

When Cullum heard that a charge of second-degree riot had been brought against him, he turned himself in. The charge was later dismissed.

Cullum has returned to campus for the May 4 commemoration almost every year. He joined a sit-in at the Kent State library two years ago to pressure the university for the Prentice Hall parking space memorials.

"It's a good thing it finally happened," Cullum says, "but it's too little, too late. The university has been dragged kicking and screaming to admission and acknowledgement of the event."

Cullum says the result is that May 4 has been kept more in the public eye. But the May 4 commemorations have been "well done enough to keep me coming back," he says.

"It's a tribute to students in the May 4 Task Force to keep involved, to keep it going."

-- Cheryl Beckwith

April 30, 1975 -- At dawn, the last Marines guarding the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam leave. Hours later, Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, falls to North Vietnam, ending the war.