On that date, I had been working my way through college at the local ABC Radio affiliate in Kent, Ohio. The studio phone rang at 1:50 pm and I answered. A calm voice asked if I could send ABC a “feed” about the current disturbance on the Kent State campus. The station had no news department. The announcer on duty was the show host, the news department, the engineer, and the receptionist. I called Paul Brennen, the announcer who would normally replace me at 2 pm and asked him to get to the station fast and he did. I grabbed a portable tape recorder and tore ass over to “back campus” the moment he arrived. I could hear where students were congregated, could smell gunsmoke in the air, and I heard sirens screaming through the air.

Hundreds of students ran past me as I ran toward the chaos and tried to stop students here & there with my recorder running to ask about what had happened. A few began to answer, stopped in mid-sentence, and continued running away.

I ran uphill into the crowd to somehow get a “feed,” an eyewitness account, environmental sounds, or something to transfer to ABC. I got to the top of the hill just in time to see below me the National Guard dispersing and students either standing still in shock or running away.

I was terrified by what I saw and exhausted from my uphill run. I could hardly get any students to stop and describe what had just happened or what they witnessed.

I was mixed with emotion. A tragedy of immeasurable proportions has just happened at my school. And I would have to call my contact at ABC Radio to tell of my failure to fetch a feed.

I found a payphone and called the secret ABC telephone number I was provided. The fellow who called me at the station answered. I told him, with shame in my voice, the result of my effort.

He paused. “That’s OK, Mark. Do you think you have a picture in your mind of what happened?”

“Yes,” I replied. I had a picture not only from what I observed but from the few sentences each of the students I stopped to interview.

“Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll ask you a question about the activity there, you’ll wait for me to click off the wire. Wait for the phone line to go silent. And then, answer the question if you can. If you can’t, that’s fine. We’ll move on. OK? Anything else you want to know?”

“No. I’m ready.” I composed myself and realized I stopped and spoke briefly to more students than I remembered.

We began the cycle. He must have asked 50 questions. I flubbed a few sentences and wanted to do them over but I was told it wasn’t necessary.

In the end, he asked me to say my name and location twice in different ways. (My “air name” was “Mark Donnelly.”)

“This is Mark Donnelly on the Kent State campus.” (Pause) “This is Mark Donnelly, Kent, Ohio.”

He told me I did a “great” job. I thanked him but I knew I didn’t.

I ran back to my car to tune in ABC Radio news “at the top of the hour.” I waited. And waited.

Finally, I heard the ABC News sounder (short theme music). The announcer in New York started the newscast with my report. That meant mine was the most important news story in the nation!

“Four students dead on Ohio’s Kent State University campus. With details, here’s Mark Donnelly…”

The audio engineers at ABC cut and manipulated the tape they recorded of me so it flowed to perfection. They gave me a deeper, more mellifluous voice. There were no flubs. No stumbles. No moments of silence while I collected my thoughts. My report started with “This is Mark Donnelley on the Kent State campus.” And it went on.

Out of curiosity, I tuned in the broadcast an hour later. My story was first again but I told it in a completely different way. The engineers used different clips and reordered the audio sequences they already used.

The nice fellow at ABC called again later in the day and asked me to “follow” the story. The network somehow got press credentials in my hands the next day (those were the days before FedEx).

General Canterbury was Governor Rhodes’ on-campus “voice” of the National Guard. He held press conferences daily for 5 or 7 days. I attended all, took good notes but was asked only to read them to my ABC contact so a national news announcer could report the latest from the studio. (For all my Cleveland friends & relatives, Dorothy Fuldheim sat next to me at each conference!)

Weeks later, a Portage County sheriff showed up at my home in Kent. He asked politely that I give him my tape recordings. I asked for one day to make copies for myself but he needed them immediately. “Besides,” he told me, “you’ll get them back. It’s required by law.”

Neither I nor the ACLU could find the tapes after that. Ever. I was too green & trusting to have thought to refuse or ask for a receipt.

A while after graduation I moved to New York. And every 5th year on the anniversary of the tragedy, the television networks would seek out students who were “there” to interview in-studio. I was one of them, though not an eyewitness.

What struck me each time was how differently my fellow Kent State students and I had perceived what became known as the “Kent State ‘Incident’” There were 3 or 4 Kent Staters each time and nobody had the same recollections.

Four murders by the US military on a sleepy US college campus and no one was found at fault. Is that what you’d call an “incident?”