Time Machine: Campaigning for RFK April/May 1968

In the Spring of '68, several of us from Asbury, abetted by our history professor Ms. Ciccorella and her daughter, Pat, made our way to Louisville and across the Ohio River to New Albany, Indiana to campaign for Robert Kennedy. It was quite an experience for this rather sheltered Georgia preacher's kid from an arch-conservative "holiness" college.

One of our duties in New Albany was to make signs for supporters to hold up when Bobby & Ethel came to town.

These are some of the signs I made and that we used when we met the Kennedys at the Louisville airport.

I didn't use these signs though. Somehow I managed to be chosen to don a ridiculous sash and styrofoam hat emblazoned with Kennedy bling and stand in the airport receiving line as the token college kid among the bigwigs.

I wish I had managed to save more of the official campaign stuff rather than these silly signs!

Still it was a thrill to shake the hands of our next president (as I believed) and his wife.

At the time I was disappointed that Kennedy had such a limp handshake (Ethel's was very firm!) -- I have since heard that major presidential candidates end up with very sore hands pretty quickly, so I have tried to give him a little break on that score.

David Matheny

You met Bobby K.??

Terrell Shaw
Very briefly, but yep. Just a handshake in the Louisville airport.

George Anderson
Terrell Shaw "He was the best of the best."

Kennedy won the Indiana primary, but only a month later the dream was shattered by an assassin's bullet.

This is one of the official posters I saved from the Indiana campaign