Recordpub.com - KSU landmark eyed: May 4 site sought for National Register of Historic Places

RC KSU May 4 - Hillside no id photo by Robert J. Lucas

By Matt Fredmonsky
Record-Courier staff writer
Four Kent State University professors are working to get the site where four students were shot and killed on campus May 4, 1970, on the National Register of Historic Places.
Professors in the anthropology, sociology, English and communication departments submitted a 142-page application to the Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board nominating the 17.24-acre site for the National Register.
The 17-member advisory board decides today(FRI 12/4) if it will recommend the site to Ohio’s state preservation officer, who would then pass the application to the National Park Service for final consideration before it makes the register.
Franco Ruffini, deputy state historic preservation officer, said the advisory board will review the nomination to see if, in their estimation, it meets the National Register criteria.
“And that it has integrity, of the site ... to convey the significance,” he said.
The application offers a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the fatal shootings of Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer and Jeffrey Miller by Ohio National Guardsmen. Specifically, the application focuses on the four days in 1970 — May 1 through May 4 — when the campus and the city of Kent were erupting with protests waged against the Vietnam War.
Mark Seeman, one of the application co-authors and a KSU anthropology professor, said the group worked on the application for the past three years.
Seeman said he and the other nomination authors — emeritus professor Jerry Lewis, English professor Laura Davis and communications professor Carole Barbato — will travel to Columbus today for the advisory board meeting.
“I think there will be some controversy, but I’m pretty comfortable we’ve done our homework,” Seeman said. “Even 40 years after the event, there are still people out there who are very negative about May 4, 1970, and who do not want to see any recognition or memorialization of this location.”
May 4, 2010 will mark the 40th anniversary of the shootings.
Kim Schuette, media relations manager for the Ohio Historic Preservation Office, said normally a site must be 50 years old to make it on the National Register.
“But this site is just of such national significance,” she said.
The primary site encompasses the Commons, Blanket Hill and the Southern Terrace near Taylor Hall. Contributing sites include the Victory Bell, Lilac Lane, the Pagoda, Don Drumm’s Solar Totem sculpture, the Gym Annex and the Prentice Hall lot, where the four students died.
If the site makes it onto the National Register, the designation will not prevent the university from making changes to, or even demolishing, parts of the site, Ruffini said.
“People get this notion that if it’s listed on the National Register, it’s somehow put in a glass jar and you can’t do anything with it, and that’s not the case,” he said.
Discussions of nominating the site for the National Register surfaced as early as 1977 when the Memorial Gym Annex was constructed near the site of the shootings.
The university plans to unveil a guided walking tour of the 17-acre site during the 40th May 4 commemoration next year.
Emily Vincent, a spokeswoman for KSU, said the walking tour will feature interpretive panels, a brochure with a new map, audio information accessible with a cell phone and audio-visual modules that can be viewed on a handheld display device.
Bethesda, Md.-based Gallagher and Associates is currently designing the walking tour at a cost of $75,000.
The overall project is estimated to cost $1.4 million.
“Fund-raising is currently under way,” Vincent said.

20.	Posted by onesmallvoice December 4, 2009
	"The protesters were given every opportunity to end this peacefully. Unfortunately they didn't and some got shot." Not even close to truth. They were dispersing, not attacking when fired on. So, if an abortion Dr. gets murdered, and then the next day in a different location there is a tea party event then it is ok for the National Guard to open fire on the tea party protesters. The students that were killed and maimed were not the people who were setting fires and breaking windows the previous weekend. But, as usual, facts make no difference to people who have their ideology so ingrained that they only listen to what supports their already formed opinion. The protesters didn't agree with you so they deserved to die.

17.	Posted by averagejoe5 December 4, 2009
	What is the memorial going to commemorate? What do we want to remember about this tragic event? That the Nat Guard and governor were murderers? Or that the protesters were creeps from out of town that were burning cars and breaking windows and looting? There is too much discrepancy in the story? May 4 means different things to different people. Will sides be both be represented? Will the students killed be martyrs for standing up for the rights of human being everywhere? This was a waste of life, that didn't have to happen. Fair Tax is right. There is a big difference in the 2 events. However Fair the left will never see it that way because good has become bad and bad has become good/right has become wrong and wrong, right. It's like crossing zones at Walmart when people, apparently without thinking, walk in front of a moving vehicle because it is their right away not taking into consideration of the imminent danger in that situation. If you don't put yourself in danger usually nothing will happen to you. These students tempted danger. The Guard didn't want to hurt them. History would be totally different if the students would have just dipersed when they were told instead of having a show down with armed guards that couldn't do anything about the whole war thing anyway. Is this the kind of history we want to memorialize? $1,400,000.00? I can think of better ways to spend this money.