Kurt Hurner, Oral History

 

Recorded: February 18, 2021

Interviewed by: Elizabeth Campion

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist, speaking on Thursday, February 18, 2021, at the Kent State University Special Collections and Archives Department. As part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, we are recording an interview over the telephone today. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Kurt Hurner.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you, Kurt. I would like to begin with some brief information about your background so we can get to know you a little bit better. [00:00:31] Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Well, I was born in Massillon, Ohio, in March of 1977. Ironically, it was exactly six years, ten months, and seven hours to the day, of the actual shooting, at 5:24am on March 4, 1977. I grew up in Lake Township, Ohio.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. [00:01:01] I understand that you were not born at the time of the shootings, but can you tell us when you first learned about the events that occurred on May 4, 1970, and what your impression was?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Oh, gosh. I was probably, I would say I was under the age of ten and I remember hearing about it. My mother was from around here at that time and my dad was actually in the Marine Corps. He was eighteen years old and in the Marine Corps at that time. It wasn’t unusual for us to hear about that kind of stuff growing up.

 

[Interviewer]: So, I understand your father was a Marine. Can you tell us how he came to serve in the military? Was he drafted? Did he enlist?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Well, he hung out with some interesting characters as a kid in a place called Logan, Iowa, which is about 800 miles west of Kent State University. All his friends were basically enlisting in the Marine Corps, so he thought, due to peer pressure, he would do it too. So, he enlisted just before he turned eighteen in 1969. His mother actually had to sign papers for him to enlist and he served from 1969 to 1972.

 

[Interviewer]: Can you provide us a timeline of your dad’s military service in relation to the Kent State Shootings?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Well, as you know, the timeline, I’m just going to take it to April of 1970. As you know, President Nixon had announced on April 20^th that the end of the war was in sight after five years. So, after that speech was given, my father was told that he was going to be part of a quote unquote, “Secret mission.” They couldn’t tell him what that secret mission was. So, they said, “You have ten days of leave to go home, get your affairs together. We would prefer you not take your leave, but you have it coming to you, so you’re more than welcome to take it.”

 

That leave started on April 26^th and Dad left San Diego for Logan, Iowa. On April 30^th, President Nixon announces the expansion of the war into Cambodia. That was the “secret mission” Dad was going to be part of after his leave was over. As you know, April 30^th happened and then that led to what happened the weekend of May 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th at Kent State University. Because of the events of Kent State University on May 4^th, Dad’s orders were changed at least five or six times before he ended up in Guam instead of Cambodia. So, he never actually ended up in Vietnam, as a result of the Kent State Shootings. 

 

[Interviewer]: Did your father ever express to you how he learned of the shootings at Kent State?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I’m assuming he watched it on TV or maybe heard it on the radio. He never really said how he learned of it, but I’m going to assume that he heard about it on television or on the radio, at that time. Because keep in mind, he still had two days of leave left when the shooting happened. But I will say that—he never once said, like a lot of conservatives, I’d say my dad was definitely not a conservative by any stretch, but you know how you sometimes hear people who are against what the students went through, “Those hippies deserved everything they got.” Dad would never say that. Dad would always say that he signed up to defend the rights of those students to do a peaceful protest and whether he agreed with it or didn’t agree with it, as long as they were exercising their free speech, he would never put them down.

 

[Interviewer]: How long was he in Guam?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I would say he was in Guam from 1970 to about 1971, early ’72 because he didn’t have enough leave. Interesting story is—1968 was the last time that Dad was home for Christmas in Logan, Iowa, until 2008. It was forty years before he went home for Christmas. In 1971, he was still stationed in Guam. In fact, they guarded submarines. There’s like seven submarines in the world that no one knows exactly where they’re at at the same time, not even the president knows. That’s what he did, is he guarded the submarines in Guam. What he did is he came here to Northeast Ohio, I actually found this out in 2006. I went to go visit Iowa governor Tom Vilsack up in Cleveland, at the time, and my mother happened to be there and he asked my mother how my father had come to Northeast Ohio. She said that he didn’t have enough leave to go home to Iowa for Christmas in 1971, so he came to Northeast Ohio with a buddy who happened to grow up with my mother. So, they met on Christmas Eve, 1971.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s an interesting way to get back to Ohio. [00:06:30] Did your father ever recall his experiences in the days and weeks after the shootings had happened in his time in Guam?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: He just talked about how they guarded submarines and there were typhoons and just the basic stuff. He listened to Vietnam Forces Radio Network a lot because there was a lot of downtime. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the TV show, M*A*S*H—

 

[Interviewer]: Yes, I love M*A*S*H.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: —and there’s always a lot of downtime in the tents. He says that’s what he remembers the most is a lot of the downtime.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, interesting. [00:07:08] Do you recall conversations with your dad about the shootings and how they had impacted him? Either at a young age or when he was older?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Like I told you, he doesn’t hold a grudge to them. He said, “As long as they were expressing their free speech to peaceful protest,” it didn’t bother him. At the time, I think he was upset that he didn’t go to Vietnam because he was a dumb kid at the time. I think, in the back of his mind, he’s kind of glad that that happened. Not that the shooting happened, but that he didn’t go to Vietnam. I didn’t want to make it sound like he was happy that kids were shot.

 

[Interviewer]: No, absolutely. I understand. [00:07:42] Did he describe any of his experiences returning home from war and what that was like?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: He does not remember being spat upon. He doesn’t remember anything like being called “baby killer” or anything like that. My mother remembers that stuff, but he does not remember any of that.

 

[Interviewer]: With your mother at home, what was her thought process with her husband—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: No, it wasn’t her husband at that time.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, yes, right. They met in 1970 or ’71?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: They met at Christmas 1971, so they didn’t even know each other at that time.

 

[Interviewer]: Did she ever discuss with him about his time in Guam or was that kind of a quiet subject?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I think that was more of a private thing that they did because I really don’t remember any of that being told in front of us. Some things you just want to keep sacred.

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. So, I understand that you attended Kent State in the mid- to late-Nineties. [00:08:35] Can you describe why you selected to attend Kent State? And also, if your family had any hesitations about coming to Kent considering the tragic events that took place on campus?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Well, my sister Tracie, she was already there in the early- to mid-Nineties, so it was just expected I would just go there. Plus, I don’t think I had the grades to go to any other school. So, once I got the acceptance letter—it’s funny because I have my nieces and nephews getting all these letters from all these prestigious schools all over the place and I told my parents, not too long ago, I said, “I don’t ever remember applying for all these schools or having to do all this or anything like that.” They said, “Keep in mind, you didn’t have the grades to do that.” So, once I got the acceptance letter, I thought, the heck with it, I’m just going to go to Kent State.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:09:33] Did you or your family have any concerns about attending Kent? Obviously, with previous protests, the tragic events?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: No, not at all. It was like twenty, twenty-five years removed by that time. I was involved in the Kent State College Democrats at that time.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I actually shared an office with the May 4^th Task Force at that time in the old Student Center. But I didn’t have much contact with, per se, them at that time. They were never really in the office at the same time as I was, or anything like that. I was actually at that Crosby, Stills, and Nash concert in 1997.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:10:27] That was my next question was if you had ever attended any of the commemorations or events in relation to May 4,when you were here?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Yeah, I was living at Terrace Hall at the time, which is now a parking lot, I believe?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I believe so.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Room 23, no, room 2431 was where I lived in Terrace Hall. Don’t ask me how I know that, but yeah, 2431. I remember attending the May 4^th Commemoration that year in ’97 when Crosby, Stills, and Nash were there giving a free concert. Of course, as we all know, they were being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at the same time. So, at that time, that was the first time that it was being held in Cleveland, so Kent was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cleveland for that event. That was held on that Sunday, May 4^th, if I remember correctly. They played like four songs, I remember they played “In My Life” by the Beatles, “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield, “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and, obviously, “Ohio.”

 

[Interviewer]: I’m very impressed with your memory on that.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Well, you know, what’s funny is YouTube has some of that stuff. YouTube actually has that concert. It was like a twenty to thirty minute concert.

 

[Interviewer]: Walking around campus, did you ever get a sense of the history when you were—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Oh, yeah, I did. I didn’t visit the memorial too much. At that time, it was just four little slabs and a wooded little area at that time. It wasn’t as big as it is now, obviously. My sister actually lived in Prentice Hall when she was living on campus and she remembers the night before May 4^th, living on campus at Prentice Hall how she had to move her car off the parking lot for the candlelight vigil.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow, to live in Prentice Hall—that’s something else.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Is that something else now?

 

[Interviewer]: No, no, that had to be interesting to live in a hall with so much history associated with the area. 

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I don’t think she really under—or not understood it—I don’t think she really thought about it. She wasn’t as into the history per se. She was more of an accounting major, where I was a political science major.

 

[Interviewer]: Have you been back on campus recently to attend any events? Obviously, not during times of the pandemic, but before then?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Not recently, but I have walked on campus, and I’m amazed at how surprised I felt when I walked on campus.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, good. I’m glad to hear.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: You guys have all those heated sidewalks and I’ll tell you something else, too, is the school’s grocery store? You know how you guys have that school grocery store, you have name brands now. When I was there, it was Grade F government cheese and meat.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, no. Yeah, I think they’ve upgraded since then.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And the Eastway Bowling Alley looks so much nicer now than it did when I was there, too.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s always impressive, even within a couple of years, to see the changes, so to go from the Nineties to—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And the fountain in the Student Center, my goodness. They don’t even have water in there anymore. I even bet a guy at the end of a semester twenty dollars he wouldn’t strip down to his underwear and sit in that fountain for at least two minutes. And he did it. He wanted that twenty.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, good for him. [00:13:59] Was there anyone in your family or friends or anyone that you knew that was obviously touched by what happened at Kent, outside of your father who had served in the military? Is there anyone else you came across in your life?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I think my mother. She was a junior at Jackson High School at the time and she remembers driving a friend of hers home from school and hearing it on the radio. Keep in mind, her family owned a farm, which, five years before the Kent State Shootings, became Kent State University Stark Campus.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, and it had to be jarring for your mom at such a young age, a high school student, to be learning of something, not too far away, to be happening like that.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Yeah. So, really my mom and dad would have been the only ones I thought of to ask how they felt about it. Other people said, like I said earlier, “Those hippies deserved exactly what they got,” things like that—so, I don’t even want to bother talking to you about that. I would just let it go and not press the issue with people like that.

 

[Interviewer]: Even though you weren’t alive during the shootings, obviously there was an influence to some capacity, especially with your father serving in the military. [00:15:25] Do you find that the shootings have impacted you on any level, whether it’s personal, politically, or anything of that capacity?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Affected me personally?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I think more in the fact that—I live in Akron now. It’s just amazing that something like that could happen just literally almost in my backyard. And that students who didn’t realize they were violating martial law because, if you remember, they weren’t told that there was martial law on the campus at that time. We didn’t have social media or anything like that at the time. So, you had to rely on flyers and how long did it take to make a bunch of flyers? To peacefully protest and to hear, for instance, on your May 4^th website that you have, I listened to Jim Rhodes give his speech at the firehouse the day before. First of all, I wanted to vomit because it seemed like he was more worried about the safety and structure of the buildings and didn’t seem to give a darn about the human life that could have been impacted. I just felt like, How could that happen? How could students who were unarmed be gunned down the way they were when they didn’t realize they were breaking the law?

 

I guess I’m glad I didn’t live during that time, but I will tell you, listening to those recordings that you guys have. If you listen to them, especially the radio programs in real time that were recorded, if you just shut your eyes and just visualize it. In your mind, it can really do a lot to somebody as far as—think, Oh my gosh, you’re observing it without participating in it, but you can get a sense of what they were going through with the protesting and then, all of a sudden, the shooting happens and the backlash when the students started giving their accounts to WKNT, which is now WNIR and WKSU. It just amazes me. I thank God that those recordings were preserved just so that people of my generation, I’m assuming I’m quite a bit older than you, and people of your generation are able to take that information and actually use it and listen to it. I think people might get more out of it as opposed to reading about it in a book.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, it provides a unique opportunity—to listen to those.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: For instance, “Operation Information,” have you listened to that one? It’s about three hours long?

 

[Interviewer]: I do not believe so.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: That was a WKSU radio program and it started—they have it recorded around the 11 o’clock hour of the evening of May 3^rd, and it goes to two o’clock in the morning on May 4^th. It’s just amazing to listen to the townspeople call in and give their perspective. It really captured the political climate of Kent and Portage County and Northeast Ohio and what people were feeling about the students or the Guard being on campus. To break away to talk about the students being tear gassed for violating curfew, it’s just incredible.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I always think it’s interesting to hear those recordings, see those photographs, and then being on campus today, and just seeing the difference. It’s really amazing. To be able to preserve those is, obviously, one of our biggest goals in the Special Collections and Archives. We’re happy to always try to preserve those types of materials so that future generations can understand what happened on Kent’s campus.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Yeah, and it’s funny because they mention places like Brady’s Café and the Robin Hood and I remember places like that when I was going there and they’re no longer around.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I think Robin Hood is a Papa Johns now, or something.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Yeah, you know what they were notorious for, don’t you?

 

[Interviewer]: I just know beer.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: They were notorious for having fake IDs on the wall.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, I did not know that.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I’ll admit it, I’ve never been in the Brady’s Café. I’ve gone by there, but I never had any interest to go because I don’t drink coffee. I think that’s a lot of it. I just never had any interest to go to Brady’s, I wish I did now. I understand that the Brady family wants to buy that back from Starbucks.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, interesting.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I could be wrong, but I understand there’s talk of them wanting to buy it again, but I don’t think it will ever be the same.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, that’d be interesting to see if that worked out.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And when they talked about the places like Lincoln Street and Main Street and Water Street, it’s like, I’ve been on those places. I know exactly where they’re talking about those places.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, yeah. That’s always interesting to be on Front Campus or to be walking down by Taylor Hall or Prentice or—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Or where Terrace [Hall] used to be.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, or where Terrace used to be. It’s really incredible. [00:21:21] Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that we haven’t covered?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I really don’t think so. I just think that what you people do there is such a service. I know people think history is hokey, a lot of people think, Okay, it’s in the past, who cares? Let’s only worry about the present. But you know, if it isn’t for our history, our present will be doomed and our future will be nothing to look forward to.

 

[Interviewer]: I agree and we appreciate that. Like I said, our biggest goal is to preserve our history and provide that access to those future generations to learn about events like May 4 and our university’s history. May 4 just didn’t affect Kent State, it was felt on—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Felt all over.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, it was felt on an international scale.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: For instance, I have an uncle, well, I had an uncle. He’s divorced my aunt now and she was there too. They were living in New York at the time and my one uncle was actually in the New York riots after the Kent State Shootings [editor’s clarification: the Hard Hat Riot, May 8, 1970]. He was like a trash boy at the New York Stock Exchange. He emptied trash cans at the New York Stock Exchange, and he got shuffled around in that riot. Mayor John Lindsay, who was the mayor of New York at the time, his assistant was there and he got shoved around. That uncle of mine still has the glasses that Mayor Lindsay’s assistant was wearing the day he got knocked around at the Wall Street riot.

 

[Interviewer]: What a token to remember something like that.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Yeah, he grabbed them just as they were falling off of his face and ran off. He still has those.

 

[Interviewer]: It’s interesting to see kind of our focus isn’t just the day, but the aftermath as well, so to hear those stories—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And I wish I knew more about Jackson State, I really do. I never really went beyond Kent State which is selfish, in my opinion, that I didn’t. Maybe someday I will, but I really wish I did know more about Jackson State.

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. I feel the same way. I think that what happened at Kent was horrible, but there was also a terrible tragedy that occurred on their campus as well.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: If you want to get down to brass tacks on that, the reason Kent State got as much coverage as they did, and Jackson State didn’t— and you probably saw the movie Fire in the Heartland, they said it. The kids at Kent State were white and the kids at Jackson State were Black and there was still racial divide in 1970.

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely, yeah. That’s one of the big things we heard, especially from our students that were in Black United Students, or BUS, is how they were telling the Black students not to be around that protest or rally on May 4 because the fear was that they would be the first ones gunned down.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: So, they were basically saying, “Let the white kids have their party and we’ll watch it on TV.”

 

[Interviewer]: Right, yeah. And especially the parallels with today, it’s an interesting history and then in relation to—

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And here’s something, I don’t know if you’ve realized it, and I know it has nothing to do with anything, but did you notice that 75 percent of the students that were killed, of the four kids killed, 75 percent of them were Jewish?

 

[Interviewer]: Yes, yes, yes.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I don’t think that has anything to do with anything. That was just random. It just seems very interesting that three out of the four were Jewish.

 

[Interviewer]: It is, yeah, absolutely interesting to me. I’ve always found that.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: In fact, I know someone who was at Kent State at the time who knew Sandy Scheuer very well. She still lives in Kent. But it’s hard for her to talk about it sometimes.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, well that was going to be my next question if she would be willing to discuss her time?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: That’s something you’d have—I’m not going to say yes or no on that because I don’t want to speak for that person.

 

[Interviewer]: We can talk offline about that. [00:25:39] So, is there anything else you want to talk about?

 

[Kurt Hurner]: No, again, like I said, I wasn’t around when it happened, but I think people who were Gen X, who weren’t around but can understand it, they can appreciate it just as much as the people that were there. They just need to take the time to actually learn it and listen to it. Again, like I mentioned earlier, your audio recordings of those radio broadcasts and the police recordings that you have, the raw audio of, my gosh, kids, you don’t even know what these are going to be called, but I’m going to say is mobile units. Back in those days, we had what’s called mobile units that were on the scene. And the mobile unit crew of WKSU, according to this audio that I listened to of raw WKSU audio, has the mobile unit in their car and they’re stopped by the State Highway Patrol and forced out of their car so that they can be investigated, or at least checked out to make sure they were legitimate, because they were violating curfew. I got to thinking, My gosh, how is that possible in the United States?

 

[Interviewer]: It’s wild to think about that that was a thing of our past.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And we can’t forget it because, unfortunately, it can happen again.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, yeah, and you learn from history.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: I don’t want to get too political, but we just had an insurrection in this country. So, don’t think that can’t happen again. And it kind of took me back to Kent State and how people were protesting versus worrying about the structure of the buildings, especially with all the Black Lives Matter stuff over the past summer and how everyone’s more worried about the businesses and the buildings versus the human life and I’m thinking, It’s like Jim Rhodes at Kent State all over again.

 

[Interviewer]: What a relation and connection right there.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: And it was fifty years after. And then, of course, with the tear gassing of peaceful protests outside Lafayette Park and I thought, Oh my gosh, it’s Kent State all over again. The National Guard is tear gassing peaceful protest.

 

[Interviewer]: I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. I really appreciate your willingness to be a part of the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. If there’s anything else you can think of? Or else, I think I’m good to end the recording.

 

[Kurt Hurner]: Thank you.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.

 

[End of interview]          

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