A Foggy 1964 Morning in Cairo

What would have brought my classmates from the Central High School Class of 1965 to Cairo, Ill., on a foggy morning on Oct. 2, 1964?

I’m pretty sure I can spot Ron Marshall, Don Sander, John Magill and Chuck Dockins. I know at least three others were there.

I’ll have the answer Friday, along with more photos, but I’m open to your guesses and more names.

17 Replies to “A Foggy 1964 Morning in Cairo”

    1. Nope. Good guess, though.

      On a Civil Rights note, though, a songwriter named Stace England penned a song that told me something I hadn’t known before.

      His bouncy bluegrass tune, “The North Starts in Cairo, Ill,” explains that buses coming up from the South had a curtain separating the back of the bus where the “coloreds” rode from the white riders up front.

      When the bus crossed the Ohio River bridge from Kentucky to Illinois, the curtain came down. That’s where the North began for those riders.

  1. Mmm..the civil rights answer would have been my first guess, too. I didn’t know that about the curtains in the buses, Ken. Wow!
    Let’s see…buses in the background, so it was an important event. Big crowd of both adults & teens, crowded too close around a car. Someone relatively important must be visiting Cairo, but they’re not important enough for security guards – so it’s not the President. No screaming teenage girls, so it’s not Elvis. More men than women in the crowd, so it could be Marilyn Monroe – but the crowd doesn’t seem rowdy enough for that. Could it have been someone important but dull, like the Sec. of State?

    1. Actually, the visitor had Secret Service protection.

      Since this was shortly after JFK was shot, I remember looking around the Cairo High School site and noting all the places where a sniper could be positioned. There’s no they could have secured all of them.

  2. Must have some Republican Big wig to get all you Conservatives out and traveling a whole 30 miles to Cairo…My Boy Barry Gooldwater would do that…my guess is the favorite son of Arizona…BARRY GOLDWATER!

    Now you should show the people the video my dad and I at Shemwell’s today! There are more people in your picture than reside there now!

  3. I think my guess would be Goldwater too since there is a person in the crowd with a Goldwater hat on. I think Jim Lorberg and I went over there in his VW, quite a ride with the wedge driving.

  4. Agree with Terry Hopkins–think it was Goldwater, since it was campaign season, and crowd probably would have been much bigger if it were Johnson.

  5. Bingo! Goldwater is the answer. And, Charlie, I wondered if anybody would notice the caption in the lower left-hand corner if you enlarge the frame or hover over it.

    Good eyes.

    More photos tomorrow.

    Skip, I was almost positive I had a shot of Shari covering it, but I can’t find it now.

  6. Ken, as soon as I read the first line of the caption, I knew it was about AuH20. (I also noted the pop-up name of the picture.)

  7. Correct, Barry Goldwater. I covered it for the Tiger (BIG career move!) and also unwittingly met my husband there, who was an actual reporter for the then healthy Cairo Citizen. As I recall, we were given one speech but Goldwater went off script all together.

    1. When I first glanced at the photo, I thought it might be, but the more I look at it, the more I doubt it.

      Wait until more photos run tomorrow and maybe the person will show up a little clearer.

  8. Barry Goldwater it is. The primary motivation for most of us was that it was a good excuse to get out of school for at least part of the day.

  9. as I recall the event, Skip and others had a run-in with a Cairo student bent on protecting the school’s goal flags.

  10. Isn’t that a Rust behind the man in the white shirt who is standing next to the car? Go right from Rust, and I believe Gary Fisher’s forehead and glasses are there. If your eyes continue moving right underneath the balloons, there are other Centralites all the to Mike Long and beyond.

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