GIRARDEANS REMEMBER DAY KENNEDY WAS SHOT

Local television broadcaster Don McNeely was at his mother's house for lunch on Nov. 22, 1963, when the shocking news interrupted the soap opera "As The World Turns." President John F. Kennedy had been shot.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 30 years ago today.

For many Cape Girardeau residents, the devastating event is clearly etched in their minds. They remember what they were doing and where they were when they heard the news, as if it had occurred yesterday.

McNeely, who recently retired as weatherman from KFVS-TV, said his mother was watching the soap opera when the bulletin came across that the president had been shot.

His reaction was one of disbelief. "Then within a short time Walter Cronkite announced that the president was dead. I remember we just got a sick feeling, a terrible feeling."

McNeely not only was anchorman for the Cape Girardeau television station back then, but also served as program director.

"Actually all we did was carry network programming for three days, and all other programs were canceled, and all commercials were canceled. It was just around-the-clock news," he recalled.

"It was just so shocking. It was the number one topic of conversation, for weeks really," he said.

John Blue, the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian at the time, was returning from lunch when he heard the news on his car radio. "It was just hard to believe," said Blue. "Of course, we were all horrified."

He remembers racing back to the office, where the news staff was putting together the afternoon edition under a banner headline, "Kennedy Slain."

The newspaper published an extra edition that day, detailing all the events surrounding the shooting of the president.

"I sat down and wrote an editorial about it," recalled Blue. The editorial ran on the front page of the extra edition.

It began, "The nation mourns a president and ponders once again the hate that can invade the hearts of men."

A story on the front page of the Southeast Missourian said, "A black veil fell today across a numb and bereaved Cape Girardeau whose citizens, in faltering voices, spoke a spontaneous eulogy for their fallen president."

The newspaper reported, "Cars, their lights burning prematurely in mid-afternoon, moved slowly through the streets as in a funeral procession."

Loretta Schneider, a former Cape Girardeau city council member, remembers hearing the news as if it occurred yesterday.

"I was getting my hair cut and I was pregnant at the time with our youngest son," she recalled.

"It was such a shock. I think everybody was numbed by it," she said.

"I remember, so clearly, everything was canceled," said Schneider. Various meetings and activities were postponed.

The Rev. William Bird was working at the old Seven-Up bottling plant at the time. "Of course, I was stunned and shocked and disappointed too," he said.

Bird said he and other African-Americans had been encouraged by what was happening with the Kennedy administration and the nation in terms of the emerging civil rights for black citizens.

"I felt at that time (prior to the assassination) that the country was taking on a new mood, new directions," he recalled.

City Manager J. Ronald Fischer owned a grocery store at the time. He had gone home for lunch when he heard Kennedy had been shot.

He said that he and his family were "just flabbergasted" by the news.

No one could have imagined such a thing in those days, he said. "I don't think people thought so much about the president, about the leader of a country, being shot."

Fischer said he went back to work. A radio was placed on top of the butcher counter and remained on throughout the afternoon. "Everybody was kind of in a state of shock the rest of the day."

Lois Boston, a Cape Girardeau County deputy clerk, was a secretary at Clearwater High School in Piedmont that November day.

She remembers it was raining in Piedmont when she went home for lunch and learned via television of the assassination of Kennedy.

"I didn't think I had heard it right. I had to go over and turn it up a little bit," she said. Boston said she was "devastated" by the news.

Robert Hendrix, past president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, was attending a meeting of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce in St. Louis when the master of ceremonies interrupted the speaker to announce that Kennedy had been shot.

"There was complete shock and then the meeting broke up right after that," recalled Hendrix, who was president of the Washington, Mo., Chamber of Commerce at the time.

"Back then, it was just something unheard of to have a president shot," he said. "On the way home, on the radio, I heard he (Kennedy) had died."