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Kent State graduates get their commencement, 40 years after shootings
Forty years later, Gary Lownsdale is still haunted by what he felt and what he saw in the last days of his senior year.
Shock and outrage over the May 4 National Guard slayings of four Kent State University students, on the other end of Ohio from his University of Cincinnati campus. Then fear and confusion as schools across the state and much of the country saw the demonstrations against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia swell into angry, combative confrontations.
One by one, colleges closed and students were ordered to pack up and leave, some amid the acrid smell of tear gas as police and armed soldiers stood guard. TV helicopters buzzed overhead. Rumors and reports were rampant, of undercover FBI agents infiltrating students, or violent radicals converging to escalate the protests.
For some graduating seniors of the Class of 1970, there would be no joyful mortarboard tosses, posing for photos with proud parents, or late-night celebration parties. They lost the chance to cram for final exams for a last boost to GPAs, or to say their good-byes to favorite professors and former roommates.
Until now.