Ohio University Post Archives

May 4, 2026

May 4 Artifacts

Ken Steinhoff riot gear used to cover protests after Kent State

Serpendipity kicked in this weekl. I was opening random boxes in the living room looking for something a collector of scout memorabilia thought I might have.

This box contained the gas mask, helmet and one of the cameras I used the Night Of Teargas at Ohio University on May 14, 1970, ten days after four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State.

I’m going to plow some of the same ground I’ve plowed before when Palm Beach Post chief photographer John J. Lopinot sends me a “Never Forget” message on May 4.

Headed to Kent State

OU Post photographer Lew Stamp 05-01-1970

Ohio University Post photographer Lew Stamp and I heard that things were heating up in Kent, so we decided to go to an Army surplus store in Marietta to pick up some gas masks and other gear.

Whatever radio station we were listening to interrupted regular programming with an announcement that several national guardsmen had been shot and killed in Kent, (Of course, that was wrong; it was students who were shot and killed.)

We decided that we’d go on to Marietta for gear, but that we’d better head back to Athens because there was no telling what was going to happen on the Ohio University campus.

Pulled over at the county line

When we crossed the Athens county line on the way back, a deputy pulled me over. Fortunately, I knew the guy so the encounter turned out to be relatively calm.

“We got a report of a couple of hippie-types at a surplus store in Marietta buying riot gear. Do you know something I should know?”

“That be us, but I think it’s a stretch to call us ‘hippie-types.’ We don’t know anything about what might happen, but we’re preparing for whatever comes up.”

Like so many stories I’ve told over the years, I’ve often worndered if that really happened.

As it turned out, Curator Jessica found an OU security log entry at 2:10 pm on May 4 saying that “Mr. Guinn (OU security head) received a report from the Ohio State Patrol that five gas masks were purchased in Marietta by a Mr. Steinhoff of The Messenger. Mr. Guinn agreed to call The Messenger to see if they had any information concerning the purpose of the acquistion.” (For the record, I think we only bought two or three masks, not five.)

Don’t let it happen here

Meeting on Ohio University Main Green after Kent State shootings 05-05-1970

Thousands of students showed up on the Main Green the night after the killings. There was much speechifying, and the crowd was trying to figure out what it was going to do.

Just about the time it looked like things might turn ugly, a young woman who said she was a Kent State student came out of the darkness and grabbed the microphone. She said she and some of her friends had witnessed the shootings and had agreed to fan out to the other state schools to beg the students not to allow a similar bloody confrontation to happen.

“The kids at Kent are running scared,” she was quoted by Tom Price in The Athens Messenger. “Don’t bring that here. Don’t throw rocks here. You don’t know how good it is to be here tonight. Just stay this way, please. Keep cool and stay together, please – male and female – because there have been two girls killed and two guys.”

They were gone as quickly as they had arrived. I never did find out who they were or if they had actually been at Kent State. Their sincerity, though, quickly changed the mood of the crowd. Slowly, students drifted away. I didn’t need my gas mask after all.

Boys and their toys

Bob Rogers at Athens Police riot training 08-24-1968

In the summer of 1968, a persuasive ordinance salesman did a demo of all the riot control gear he had for sale. The Athens PD and the OU security department must have been impressed enough to buy a bunch of toys that didn’t see any use until The Night of Teargas on May 14, 1970.

Photo boss Bob Rogers, on the right, paused from taking pictures to make sure his hair was under control.

Teargas stayed on the shelf

Despite several Rites of Spring incidents, the teargas wasn’t used until that night on May 14.

Finally got to use my mask

OU buddy Ed Pieratt documented my attire the night of the riot that closed the school. The good news was that the mask worked against the gas. The bad news was that it was a humid night, and the thing fogged up about the time I got into the action.

Later on, a friendly cop gifted me a modern M16 mask that I had fitted with prescription eye glasses.

‘I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died’

After all of the posts I’ve done on the topic, the most moving experience I had was interviewing Dean Kahler, a Kent State student who was shot and paralyzed on May 4.

“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said. He never walked again, but he has turned into a highly competitive wheelchair athlete.

After the shooting stopped, he called out to see if there were any Boy Scouts around who could turn him over. “The only thought that came into my head was if I was turned over, would I bleed more internally than externally? I thought (shrugs shoulders) there’s a 50 / 50 chance that you’re going to die one way or the other. I knew I might die. I had a really good chance of dying, so I wanted to see the sky, the sun, leaves, peoples faces. I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died.”

I’ve done lots of May 4 posts

Here are a few of the posts I’ve done about protests in Athens and other places.

October 22, 2025

Football and Fine Arts

I’ve been on an orgy of scanning lately. I digitized all of the 1967-68-69 and 70 Ohio University football games, and printed more than 600 pictures for a reunion of my old paper, The Palm Beach Post.

I created a subset of the football pix that showed the OU Marching 110, considered one of the best college bands in the county, because I have two grandsons in marching bands. The older of the two was recruited out of his middle school by the local high school. Both boys were recognized as section leaders.

I guess I should explain this photo

Anyway, I need to explain why my eye kept coming back to this photo so that I don’t come across as a dirty old man who has a picture taken as a dirty young man.

When my high school buddy Jim Stone convinced me to transfer to Ohio University in Athens my junior year, I have to admit I didn’t realize that it was a fine arts school, not a journalism school. I felt as welcome as a beer can at a Baptist picnic. Some of my classmates called me a prostitute because I took pictures for money, not “art.”

So, let me give a fine art spin on my cheerleader picture. That’s a bit of a departure for me because I always contended that my photos stand by themselves with maybe a little who, what, where, when, why and how help.

I wanted a machine that would freeze time

I’ve written before how most kids wanted to build time machines that would let them jump behind or ahead of the present day. I wanted a machine that would freeze time, and that’s why I became a photographer.

This young cheerleader is frozen in mid-cartwheel. Her hand is reaching out to land, her legs haven’t begun their transition over the top, and she’ll be in that pose forever. The other thing that strikes me is the complete disinterest the folks in the crowd showing. She’s giving her all, but nobody cares.

I captured a young woman in the prime of her life who is probably a grandmother today.

The band was a family

Curator Jessica and her sister, Elizabeth, were both in the Marching 110. Jessica would describe how close her bandmates were then and now. I’ve seen pictures of her marching with alums down Court Street. As a mature woman, she admits being a little sore the day after, but she’s still glad to lug her trombone down the bricks and gyrate with the youngsters.

I was never a jock or a frat boy, but I had the same sense of belonging as a member of The Ohio University Post newspaper. We lived an breathed the news biz and put out a darned good paper every day.

2013 OU football

At Jessica’s urging, I returned to Athens in 2013 to cover a game honoring the 1968 MAC winners. Since I didn’t have to come up with action pix for the next day’s paper, I took an unconventional approach.

Trimble took football seriously

I was roaming around SE Ohio in 2014 when a guy at the Glouster fire department said there was going to be a big playoff game that night, but they were afraid the home field was going to be too wet to play. They brought in a helicopter to hover over the grass to dry it out.

I had a wonderful time photographing the fans who took an intense personal interest in the game.

Sikeston Bulldogs bite the Tigers big time

When I heard that the Cape Central High Tigers were going to clash with the Sikeston Bulldogs in 2010, I thought it would be fun to relive my old high school football games with a modern digital camera that would let me shoot color where I had struggled to shoot black and white. Both teams were undefeated going in, but the Bulldogs ran all over Central 21-0. Fan spirit can go only so far.

Enough words. Here’s a gallery

Here’s a gallery of Ohio band photos. Click on any picture, to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to step through the collection.

May 3, 2020May 3, 2020

Portraits of a Pandemic

My former Palm Beach Post Chief Photographer is going to be disappointed. Every May 4, John J. Lopinot sends me a cryptic two-word message: “Never Forget.” He and I both know what he’s referring to – the killing of four students at Kent State 50 years ago. I haven’t forgotten, but this might be the last post on the topic.

Bear with me. I’ll get around to the point in a bit. With advanced age comes forgiveness for meandering.

2015 The Sky Has Fallen exhibit

Sky Has Fallen exhibit opening 04-17-2015

In the spring of 2015, Curator Jessica and I put together a major photo exhibit on the protest era at Ohio University for the Southeast Ohio History Center. The title of the show came from what has become Ohio University Post legend.

After a night of rioting two weeks after Kent State, the decision was made to close the university. The student newspaper, The Post, was on a hard deadline to get the story in print. Just before it hit the presses, someone said, “We don’t have a weather report for tomorrow.”

Editor Andy Alexander, a darned good journalist then and now, said, “Just write, ‘The sky has fallen.’”

A journey to Kent State

Jessica and I paid a visit to the Kent State May 4 Visitor’s Center to see how they handled the event and to see if there was any way we could collaborate with other Ohio museums for the 50th anniversary.

‘I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died’

Our guide was a fellow in a wheelchair who could glide up the hills of the grounds as fast as I could walk up them.

We were halfway through our tour when I realized the man was Dean Kahler, one of the students who had survived being shot that day. I hadn’t prepared to shoot a video, but I managed to capture his haunting tale. It was one of the most moving interviews I’ve ever done.

“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said. He never walked again, but he has turned into a highly competitive wheelchair athlete.

What are we going to do for the anniversary?

Jessica and I wondered how we were going to mark the 2020 anniversary of the event. What could we do that would add a new dimension to what we had already done?

I suggested reaching out to some Athens county residents and assembling a panel to talk about what they remembered. Not long after that, Jessica became a new mother, and we didn’t talk as often as we once did. I suspect she had barely enough energy to take care of ONE baby.

When the world changed because of COVID-19, I said, “I guess I don’t need to work to get a 50th anniversary show catalog to the printer, do I?”

1970 and 2020

She said she didn’t have any idea when they’d be able to open the museum, but it certainly wouldn’t be by May 4.

Then she said something that gave me pause: “There are a lot of similarities between 1970 and 2020. In both years, the university closed, graduation was cancelled, and the town emptied of students.

How about I come back to Athens?

After thinking about it for a couple days, I tossed out an idea: how about I come back to Athens to shoot a Portrait of the Pandemic? I will have missed the mass evacuation, but I could still document the empty streets, people in masks (or not), signage, anything that will help paint the picture of 2020, much like I had done with the turmoil and teargas of the ’60 and ’70s?

I still have the gas mask

I mean, I still had the gas mask Ed Pieratt shot my photo wearing during the riots. I could dust it off again.

I’m in the middle of reading John M. Barry’s excellent book, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. (He also wrote Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, a book I’ve read three times, and learned something new each time.)

That book has scared the bejeebers out of me because I’m in at least 2-1/2 of the high-risk categories. The more and more I read about governors opening up their states before we are anywhere near sure we are out of the woods, the more uncomfortable I became with the idea of driving 528 miles one-way to photograph people on the street.

When I was trying to justify the idea to some friends, I said that I had spent most of my life running into places other people were running out of. I may have made some bad judgments in retrospect, but I never made them without considering the risks.

It was time to do some serious risk analysis before jumping into this project.

In the end, I told Jessica that I’m not 21 years old anymore. I’ve dodged bullets in my life (literally), but I didn’t think it was prudent for me to risk what’s left of my days. I still have lots of film to scan.

I’m practicing social distancing

I’m trying to limit the number of places I shop, I wear a mask, and try not to have much contact with other people. The latter reason is why the only person I photographed wearing a mask was me at the top of the page.

Here are some images from stores in the Cape Girardeau area (plus some masks a friend left taped to my front door). You can click on any of them, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Vistors DO come by the house

I’m not completely isolated. I parted the curtains to see Phoebe the feral cat and a couple deer visitors the other night. They weren’t wearing masks, but they were observing proper social distancing.

Previous May 4 posts

Here’s a list of stories and photos I’ve posted about the Kent State and protest era over the years. I’m not sure if I’ll be adding to it. Sorry, Lopi.

April 1, 2016

LBJ: “I will not seek; I will not accept”

Walter Borton, an old Ohio University friend jogged my memory today with a comment on Facebook:

“Forty eight years ago today – I was in the front row of a student government meeting upstairs in Baker Center at Ohio University – I think Rita Corriel was presiding and suddenly from the back of the room, if memory serves, Tom Price, holding a small portable radio to his ear, interrupted excitedly to announce that Lyndon Johnson had just withdrawn from the Presidential race. I’m not sure what happened next but I suspect we recessed to the Union bar & grill to drink.”

OU Post reporter Carol Towarnicky chimed in: “From a different angle: While you were all at the Student Government meeting — what was the issue that had everyone there? — I was in The Post office with, I think, one other person and we were listening to LBJ’s speech. When he said, “I shall not seek, nor will I accept” I screamed. Then I didn’t know what to do because there was no way to reach people, but it turns out everyone knew anyway. What an exciting time putting out the paper that night.”

Post editor Bill Sievert remembers it this way: “Those of us Posties who were present (and most of the people in the room) cheered Tom Price’s announcement. Then we finished covering the meeting and went back and joined Carol Towarnicky in putting out the paper. It was hard work but somebody had to do it. (We drank much, much later in the night.) Tagging Ken Steinhoff; he’ll remember if he took the picture. He has a photographic memory.”

How I remember it

My perspective: Nobody knew what Johnson was going to speak about on that March 31 evening. The speech started off sounding like he was positioning himself to steal thunder from challengers Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy by announcing measures they had been advocating, demonstrating that his was the power to act, while his critics had only the power to propose, wrote The New York Times.

I’m not sure where this group was watching the speech on a TV. It could have been in the Scott Quadrangle dorm lounge where I lived, or it might have been in the Baker Center Student Union, where The Post had its offices in the basement. I shot a few half-hearted frames early in the speech, even resorting to my fisheye lens, signalling that I wasn’t expecting much to happen. When I blew up one frame, I’m pretty sure I saw my future Athens Messenger colleague Bob Rogers lolling in the doorway, equally as disinterested in what was happening as I was.

When LBJ said, “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President,” there was an audible gasp in the room. If I captured any emotion, it’s on film that I haven’t found yet. Right after he spoke those words, I looked over at a calendar, thinking, “Surely the President of the United States won’t follow that up by saying ‘April Fool!”

It was March 31, not April First, and, no, he wasn’t kidding.