My name is Mary Ann Costa. I teach speech and drama, and I'm the drama director at Roosevelt High School. My address is [address removed to protect right to privacy], Kent Ohio.
On May 4th, 1970, I was a student at Bowling Green University. And it's -- it's funny -- I remember when the incident happened, I had already made plans to transfer to Kent State. So, my transfer papers were, you know, processed and I was going to transfer. And then, when this happened, everyone questioned me about "Why are you going to Kent State? Is it because you want to get into the action?" And I just thought that was a little foolish.
But I remember very specifically, at Bowling Green, when this happened how angry and how upset everyone was. And students at Bowling Green struck their classes for one week. They just -- we kind of -- the students closed all classes down, in protest of what happened on May 4th. And I was a -- I remember we had many, many meetings, we had marches on different days, and I signed up to be a student marshal for crowd control. And I remember wearing a black armband and we marched all over campus, we marched through the streets of Bowling Green, we held signs, we chanted. And it was a very, very moving experience, to know that we could lend our support for what happened at Kent State.
And I, just, I will never ever forget that. And then, when I transferred, I was very, very proud to be a part of the Kent State community after that. And I ended up graduating from Kent two years later.