My name is Eleanor Pawicki. I am sixty years old. I was getting my Bachelor of Education degree on Kent State, and I was on campus on May 4th of 1970. I was in geography class when we were notified that we should leave the class. I was sort of in doubt as why we should leave because I heard a number of ambulances going by, but I didn't understand why our class should be interrupted. So I went to my next class, which was bowling, on the other side of campus, and there were hardly any people around the area where I was -- around McGilvrey Hall, I believe. I went to this bowling alley, and there were several students there, and they didn't know if we were going to have bowling or not, so I thought -- after waiting around for about a half hour and still hearing sirens, I thought, Well, I'm going to go back home. Because I was commuting from Warren, Ohio at that time and my car was parked on Main street at a Sohio station where I always parked every day. So I started back to the gas station, and I remember wondering if I should go back and see what was going on because I knew that things had been sort of in a state of panic all week. All my classes had been interrupted with different kinds of -- they said bomb scares, and I'd go to class and they would say, "Well, we're going to have bomb squad come in and check out the room" before we were able to stay here, so we would have to leave and go outside. And then they would tell us, "Well, you can go into class if you want. It's at your own risk." And, you know, after going through that for a week, you really didn't know what you were supposed to do on May 4th of 1970.
Since I was an older student, I thought, Well, I'll just let the young ones go where they want to go and I'll just go home. So then I finished my courses by correspondence and talking to the professors on the telephone. I got all 'Bs' and one 'A' from my bowling, which I took the rest of it through the mail, and they sent a real big many-page exam. And I couldn't complete it -- only about half of it, so I got my husband's friend who was an expert bowler, to look at it -- he couldn't even answer the questions! But I graduated anyhow, that same year of December in 1970, and James Michener was the speaker. Things were still tense on graduation day, and one man came up to the podium while James Michener was speaking, and the first thought that came through my mind was, Oh, he's going to kill him. And that was just the mentality of those times, you just always expected the worst of whatever was going to happen. But I guess the man was a little mixed up, and Security just escorted him out.
I've since gotten two other degrees from Kent State -- a Master in Education and a Master in Library Science, and I just wanted to come back today because it seems that each year it becomes more meaningful, especially -- I've been in Tieneman Square in China through Kent State, studying there also, and it seems to me -- everybody says how terrible that is in China because they fired on their own people. Well, the same thing happened here on a smaller scale.
If anybody would like further information, if I can be of help, you can contact me at Hudson, Ohio. I'm in the phone book -- P-A-W-L-I-C-K-I, or through the Alumni Association you can get my name and address. I think that's all today. Thank you.