In 1988, on the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, The Daily Tar Heel editors contacted UNC alumnus Timothy Reardon to recount his memories of the day. The following column by Reardon appears below as it ran in the Nov. 22, 1988 edition of the paper.

Kennedy’s death left Chapel Hill shocked

Timothy Reardon, Guest Writer

Nov. 22, 1963 was a Friday. Fridays were always great in Chapel Hill. This one was soft and sunny with few clouds. The air was calm but all else was astir with excitement in anticipation of the game with Duke just 24 hours away.

I was a freshman living on the then-outer rim of the campus universe, Ehringhaus, and was a small part of an otherwise wonderfully talented freshman football team. For me and my teammates in the “southern part of heaven” was just that.

At around 1 p.m. EST, my teammates and I were eating lunch at Ehringhaus cafeteria. “Doc” was in charge of the place. I forget his full name, but he was very good to all of us and would delight in how we loved his food. Anyway, Ray Ferris, the QB coach and a fine gentleman, was sitting with us when one of the guys — I can’t remember who — came over to our table and said, “Kennedy’s been shot.”

My instant reaction was to dismiss the comment as part of the relentless raillery — occasionally tasteless — in which we all gladly engaged. I felt just a tinge of discomfort and anger. After all, President John Kennedy was not held in universal esteem. My dad, who had known him well for nearly 30 years and worked closely with him for 17, then as special assistant for Cabinet affairs, had sent him off from the White House to Dallas with great misgivings due to the explosive political climate existing there between the two wings of the state Democratic party. Even I had gotten to know the president well, and regarded him with the greatest respect and affection. But assassination — nah — imagine the madness of it, I thought.

Coach Ferris, one of the very few who knew anything about the closeness of my family to the president, rebuked the boy for his insensitive humor, but my teammate rejoined, “Coach, it’s no joke. Kennedy’s been shot down in Dallas.” My heart sank and my stomach turned. I excused myself and rushed to my room (512) where, tears welling, I was joined by my roommate Peter Collinson.

We turned on the radio, pulled down the shade and in the dimness listened with hope but in horror to the avuncular, trustworthy Walter Cronkite as he broadcast a series of program-interrupting bulletins. We learned that there had indeed been shots fires during the president’s motorcade through downtown Dallas; then, moments later, that the president apparently had been hit at least once and was being taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was being “treated.”

I parried each new dark revelation with new hope — maybe he hadn’t been hit, or if he had that the wound was minor, or if not minor, it would be treatable.

Mr. Cronkite repeatedly states that the president’s condition was unknown. Sobbing in the darkness, I kept trying to squeeze hope from uncertainty until finally Cronkite, his voice breaking, announced that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead at Parkland.

Crushing sadness followed. He could not be dead. I went to the pay phone on the fifth floor lobby and called collect to home — hoping against hope to learn from an even more reliable source that Cronkite that there had been a terrible mistake or perhaps a master plan of deception. Mother answered the phone crying — I knew then. But I asked anyway. “Did you hear? Is it true?” “Yes, it is, isn’t it terrible?” she wept. I told her I loved her and Dad and would come home in the morning.

Peter and I then stood outside on the balcony facing campus — everything was completely still and quiet. I do not remember seeing anyone. We decided to make a visit to church and walked through the rocky field that is now Boshamer Stadium up the hill to Ridge Road around the intersection where South Road turns into 15-501. We saw few people and fewer cars in the unique stillness of that day. On South Road, a cluster of brightly colored crepe-filled floats stood in stagnant readiness for a parade that would not be. The Duke game would soon be canceled. We continued on Ridge Road, went right to Gimghoul Street to its end, where we found the doors to St. Thomas More Church locked. A priest from the rectory opened them, and we went in and prayed.

After a while, we left the church and proceeded to the nearby Gimghoul Castle overlook, where the tree-filled plain below lay in exquisite reverent peacefulness as far as the eye could see under the now softly overcast Carolina sky — all in stark contrast to the unspeakable violence that had just been released upon us all i. Dallas…

Billy Darnell drove me to the airport the next morning. Thanks, Billy, wherever you are. We had a nice talk on those country roads. I just cannot remember what it was.

What none of us back then could have known is that President Kennedy’s death not only marked the end to an era of great promise but a beginning to a great turmoil. During the next decade, specters unknown to us then, based on the increasing reality of assassinations, war and civil strife would weigh upon all who would follow us. An age of innocence had suddenly, violently ended. It would be a far different world.

Happy Postscript

Now, 25 years from that awful day, my beloved daughter Sarah is a freshman at my Chapel Hill. She loves it now just as I did then, Her sister Samantha and three brothers Tim, Joe and John envy her greatly, since it is not yet time for them to live in Chapel Hill. Sarah still lives in Hinton James, even further than I did from the Old Well, but in the post-Dean Dome configurations, she actually lives closer to many things.

My thoughts and prayers will be with her and her classmates in the class of 1992 on this Tuesday, Nov. 22, 1988, as she remembers her father’s experiences 25 years earlier, just across the street.

Timothy Reardon, a 1967 UNC graduate who now lives in Washington, D.C., is special assistant to the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division.

Click here to read reflections from 1963 Daily Tar Heel staffers.

Click here to read The Daily Tar Heel’s coverage following the assassination.