Charles Sackett, Oral History

 

Recorded: September 15, 2025

Interviewed by: Liz Campion

Transcribed by Kent State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives

 

[Interviewer]: This is Liz Campion, May 4 Archivist, speaking on Monday, September 15, 2025. 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?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Chuck Sackett.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you, Chuck. When did you first come to Kent State University?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I came there in—I believe it was ‘68 or ‘69 as a transfer student from Ohio State [University].

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, and what brought you to Kent State University?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I had a terrible—well, let me go back to Ohio State first. When I went to Ohio State, I signed up for the engineering program because my dad was a graduate engineer from Ohio State. My brother went to Ohio State, and my sister went to Ohio State. So that's where I had to go. I felt that was family history.

 

When I got there, I realized, after the first week that I was not prepared to go into the engineering program. The background in math I had in Tallmadge, Ohio, ended at Algebra II, and I was totally lost. So, I started playing euchre and ended up being the euchre champion on the third floor of Drackett Tower. At the end of the first quarter, I had a GPA of .08. Needless to say, I was in trouble.

 

I then—when I came home, I decided I still wanted to go back. So, I went back and continued my bad ways, and I knew I had to improve and I got my GPA up to 1.5, which was still not good enough. I had some help then from an academic advisor who told me I needed to change majors. And I said, “Yeah,” and I read an article in the Ohio State student newspaper, The Lantern, that the television studio there was looking for people that were willing to go through a training session—actually, six unpaid training sessions—to learn how to run equipment and do student productions. I thought, well, I’ll try. I figured that a failing freshman wasn't going to get very far but I went over tried out and ended up getting selected to participate in the program. 

 

After that, I actually made it to the paid production staff and one of the professors, and I can't remember his name, I'm sorry about that, asked me if I would be willing to work at Kent State over the summer in their new fledgling program, because he was personal friends with Dr. Philip Macomber, and Dr. Macomber was looking for people to assist him getting started. I said, “Certainly.” He said, “I will call him and let him know to expect your call.” And I thought, Well, that's just a polite way of being blown off. But anyway, when I got home, I called Dr. Macomber's office, and he was expecting my call. I ended up working over the entire summer doing two things. First, was pulling coaxial cable through the storm sewers across the campus to get closed circuit television to all the buildings, that was fun. The next thing I did was to learn how to run some student productions and was a floor director for exciting things like cutting frogs open for the biology department. So, I learned a lot. I appreciated it. Dr. Macomber wanted me to stay at Kent State, and I had neglected to tell him that I promised I would go back to Ohio State for my final quarter there, and which I did, I kept my promise. And then following that, I went back to Kent State full time, got my life straightened around, and from there it was pretty smooth sailing.

 

[Interviewer]: When you came back to Kent State, were you living on campus?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No, I was a commuter student.

 

[Interviewer]: What was your major when you were a student, when you came back to Kent State?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: When I came back to Kent State, I enrolled in the telecommunications program, which was part of the Department of Speech.

 

[Interviewer]: Perfect. So, I understand as a graduate assistant, you had a role in the Student Activities Office. Can you describe that role?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Sure. It started when I was a student. I was in Chestnut League, and so was Chuck Ayers--that's where we met. Chestnut League was the student organization that supported athletic programs. And—how do I want to put this? We had a fun organization. Chuck Ayers did amazing posters for the football games, but our football program was a little less than stellar. But we all had fun and we learned a lot.

 

After that, well, after—I ended up being asked by the Dean of Students if I wanted to become a graduate assistant. I'm going to put a pause there for a moment, because I'm going to jump back. Prior to that time, when I first got to Kent State, I was sitting in The Hub, which I did all the time. That's the student place where you get Cokes and stuff. And they had in the student newspaper that the student body elections were coming up and there was only one person that had signed up to be president of the student body. And I said, “Huh, that's interesting.” And I took at least three or four minutes to think about it and I said, “I'm going to sign up to be president.” And I did. You had to get so many signatures and I couldn't even figure out how to do that. And there was a student organization in one of the dorms, I think it was Johnson Hall, by the name of Mobobrious Pit, and one of their members stopped by and asked me if I needed some help. I said, “I need more than help.” He said, “We would like to be your publicity organization.” I said, “You're hired.” They did an amazing job. I'd never seen anything like it. They organized all of the dorms. I had my posters in windows. I had people putting together meetings. I met with the students in each of the dorms. It was an interesting sight to behold. And I knew we weren't going to win, but it sure was fun trying.  And I ended up getting around thirty percent of the vote.

 

Bill Vander Wyden, who was the presidential opponent, was from a well-organized fraternity, and the Greeks had always won elections, and they won this one. Bill did a great job, I like Bill. But I think we actually made some inroads because the following year a residential commuting student was elected president.

 

[Interviewer]: What prompted your interest in participating in this or running for president in the first place?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I think it was because I enjoyed doing silly things. I didn't give it any thought. I just thought having one president or one person on the ballot was not really a good idea.

 

[Interviewer]: Right. When you first arrived on campus, how did you view the protests and the Vietnam War in general?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Well, there's another story to that. I took in the broadcasting department—we were still getting the television, which was Channel 2, up and running. They wanted to do an evening news program. I volunteered, along with Randy Gerber, to be the two people that were on the broadcast each night. Our main source of information came through. It was either UPI or AP, I'm not sure which. But we had graphic images of the war that we used every night and that was—I won't say that that fixated me or changed my mind on the war—but I became very tired of watching the carnage each night to the point where Randy and I sat down and said you know we need to quit carrying some of this stuff. We both decided, no, we didn't need to stop, we needed to continue, because that was our job as a broadcaster.

 

[Interviewer]: How politically involved or active would you describe yourself at the time, and did you participate in any of the protests or political organizations?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No, I did not participate. I'm going to give you another. Back when I first got there, in fact, even at this time, Kent State was not a hotbed of political activity. I mean, I read stuff that says all the demonstrations were this and that. No, the campus was your normal campus. It had more people interested in football, and basketball, and stuff. And it was only after, basically May 4th on, that the political activities overtook the events on campus.

 

[Interviewer]: As protests began to kind of sprout up across the nation, did anyone in your family communicate their feelings about the protest on the war?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No, not at all. My relationship with my family, with my dad it was good, with my mother, it was not so good. The reason that I stayed at Kent State as much as I could and, when I went to Ohio State I never came home, was because I felt my mother was just evil. That's sad to say, but that was my thought. And when I got to Kent State as a commuting student, I signed up for the earliest classes that I could, which was 7:45 in the morning, which meant I had to get up and leave the house before she got up. And I then didn't go home until after 10:00, and when I got home, she was already in bed—so there was very little communication at all.

 

[Interviewer]: One thing I failed to mention, or ask earlier was where were you commuting from?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Tallmadge, Ohio. Very short distance away.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, got it. How would you describe the prevailing attitudes or mood among the students in the spring of 1970, prior to the shootings?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: The students, you know, they were typical students. I mean, there were parties, there were programs that they attended. One of the things that, well, maybe it should come up now versus some other time, but they talked about the closing of the bars before May 4th, and they were saying all this—student rioters and the student this. At that time, 3.2 beer was prevalent. It wasn't just Kent State students that went to the bars, but there were high school students from all over Northeastern Ohio that went there. It was a very popular place and, at that point, it was non-political.

 

[Interviewer]: Prior to the shootings, what was your sense of how local Kent community members perceived the Kent State students?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: At that time, prior to the shootings, I thought we got along well. The students, again, were students. They may have gotten a little drunk on the weekends, but again, up until May 4th or 3rd or sometime around there, it wasn't a political place.

 

[Interviewer]: Can you describe the environment on campus in the days following President Nixon's announcement to expand the war into Cambodia?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Yeah, the students were, I guess I could say, pissed off, but the students were angry, and they saw it as an expansion. They just couldn't believe a war that we were trying to end was just getting larger and more people were going to die.

 

[Interviewer]: After the announcement [to expand the war], on the evening of May 2nd, 1970, the night of the ROTC fire, where were you located on campus?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I was in my office at the Student Activities building or office, which was, well, it used to be a cafeteria. They turned it into office space and it was right below Taylor Hall and adjacent to, I think it was Stopher-Johnson Residence Hall.

 

[Interviewer]: From your vantage point, can you describe what you witnessed taking place at the ROTC building that night?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Sure. I heard glass breaking. You know, it was close. And I looked out and I saw a man standing next to a broken window at the ROTC building. It was the one that was close to the sidewalk. I just walked out the back door, stood in the parking lot, and I saw this man standing there. And a few minutes later, he turned around and walked back to, I'm trying to think of the name of the building. Give me a minute. Rats, I'll think of it and then I'll let you know.

 

Anyway, he ran across the street and hid between the trees and the building. I went back into my office. I called campus security and then went back outside to see when campus security showed up—what was going on. Well, the thing was campus security never showed up, which I found interesting. Then I saw the man come back out of the shadows and go back to the broken window and climb through the window into the building. And I never saw him again.

 

I went back and called campus security a second time, then went back out into the parking lot to watch. And then, I saw a glimmer of what I now know was fire, I guess. And I wasn't going to call the fire department until I ran down and looked in to confirm that it was a fire. And I went down the street—it was definitely a small, very small fire. And I was going back to my office to call the fire department, but I never did. On the way back, I noticed there were two fully outfitted firemen hiding in the shadows where the guy had come out from. And I think it was Van Deusen Hall. And they were standing there and then when I was heading up back towards my office, I noticed that there was a coiled fire hose that was next to a fire hydrant and there were also firemen up on the hill, I think it was behind the power plant, so I didn't even bother calling. I figured they were right there, they'd take care of it. That didn't turn out to be the case.

 

[Interviewer]: Why do you feel that there was a lack of response from the firefighters on site?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: My personal feeling is that they were told not to. I think that there was a coordinated effort to have that building burned.

 

[Interviewer]: One thing I wanted to ask about that evening, can you describe the crowd or the environment around the building at the time of the fire?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Yeah. When I first went down there, there wasn't anybody there, the first trip. Then when I went down and saw this teeny-weeny, little fire, there may have been a handful of students. It wasn't until maybe half an hour later or so when the flames were shooting high or when the building was fully engaged, that people started showing up. At best, I would say three or four hundred people max, maybe less, ended up there to watch the fire.

 

[Interviewer]: Can you walk us through kind of what the ROTC building—the purpose of it, or what the material was of that building? Was it brick? Was it wood, et cetera?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: It was all wood, and it was—those were built as barracks for World War II. They were just wooden structures and to the best of my knowledge they were just storage buildings for the ROTC program, or maybe even the university.

 

[Interviewer]: How did witnessing the ROTC fire affect your view on university leadership or government officials?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Say that again?

 

[Interviewer]: How did witnessing the ROTC fire affect your view on university leadership or government officials?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Oh, boy. I felt that, for all of this to happen, the university had to be aware. Then I got thinking, well, then the police had to be aware. Then the fire department had to be aware, which meant the city would be aware. And I thought that, from that point on, that there was a cover-up going on. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why and who. The people I worked with at the university, the university officials, I think may have had a plan and I think the plan was working up until the point that the governor ended up calling in the National Guard.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you recall how university leaders or co-workers of yours responded to the ROTC fire in the following days?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: The following day was pretty calm, but the university had mobilized a student call center, which I participated in, and also, they had faculty marshals, and they did a terrific job of keeping a lid on things with the students.

 

[Interviewer]: What was the purpose of the student call center?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: It was a place where—it was a call center that was open twenty-four hours a day. The purpose was to squelch rumors and to provide information for students calling in wanting to know what was going on and also parents calling in wanting to know what was going on. We had a lot of commuting students, and so they weren't—

 

[Interview is paused]

 

[Interviewer]: Yes, so you were talking about the commuter students that were calling and kind of the purpose of the student call center...

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Yeah, it was it was basically for anyone that wanted to know what was going on. We had a lot of commuter students and a lot of them had no idea of all those activities on the night of the fire.

 

[Interviewer]: And was that student call center in response to the [ROTC] fire, or was it active before?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No, it was as a result of the fire.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. Can you walk us through your experiences surrounding the events of May 4, 1970?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Sure, I guess. May 3rd was relatively calm except that the [National] Guard was on station all across campus. On May 4th, there was a group of Guardsmen actually outside of the Student Activities Office in a straight line, down along the base of, I guess I called it Blanket Hill.

 

Anyway, the Guardsmen were there. There were students there. There were onlookers. There were curiosity seekers. I did not witness any hostilities at all. There would be students walking up to Guardsmen, face-to-face, and talking with them. Everything seemed to be fairly calm until it wasn't. And I think, this is personal opinion. I don't think it was the university's administration, but the people controlling the National Guard decided that they were going to show them who's boss. Had they let them alone, nothing would have happened, but somebody told them that they had to disperse whatever students they saw.

 

When they started their march up the hill towards Taylor Hall, students followed them—not in a harassing manner. I don't know if they were curious or whatever. And on the top, there was a group of students that were below them, towards the parking lot, and there were students there. My personal feeling was that these were all onlookers. They were just people that wanted to see what was going on. When things headed—well, another thing, is that classes were in session that day. It was Monday. It was noon. And students were walking up from their dormitories to classes on front campus. So, there were a lot of those students mixed in. And then things started heading south and that's when the tragedy occurred.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, so it sounds like it was kind of the peak of the busy day. You have students going in between classes, probably a lot of people leaving for lunch. So, can you walk us through what your immediate reaction was when you realized people had been shot?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I was, the answer to that is I was shocked. I was appalled. At the time, I did not realize how serious it was. In the Student Activities Office, there was a gentleman, our staff accountant for all the student organizations, Warren Graves. Warren was in the call center at the time, where I was, and he said he'll go out and take a look. He walked up the hill and came back and shared with us the carnage that had just taken place. And we asked if it really looked like people were shot. He said, “There's blood all over. Yes, this was not a good thing.”

 

[Interviewer]: How long after the shootings did you stay on campus or was there an urgency to get off campus?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: At the time, the president of the university closed the campus. And it took the better part of the afternoon for that to happen. I guess someone else said that the campus was closed indefinitely. I was gone before that happened. But we all left on a fairly orderly basis.

 

I had a girlfriend, actually, she's now my wife. So, I had a girlfriend that was in a dorm that was walking through the parking lot when the shooting started, and I tried desperately to get in touch with her. It was in the middle of the night before she was able to get a ride back to her town and make it to her house. For me, that was concerning, to say the least. And then from then on, the campus was off-limits to everyone.

 

[Interviewer]: How did the university and community respond in the days and weeks following May 4?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Well, the campus was closed. Even the staff was not permitted. I think the vice president for student affairs was even barred from being on campus. I think it was just the president and somebody else. I don't know. Anyway, it was just until they figured out what to do and how to approach opening campus and how to prepare for the students' return, consumed most of their energies.

 

[Interviewer]: To go back to an earlier question, what was your sense of how local Kent community members perceived the Kent State students, after the shootings?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I can't honestly answer that. There was no big hue and cry that I remember from the students or the town. But I do know that the town and gown relationships were stretched. And I think the parents of students in the town were concerned for their safety but that's about all I can speak to.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you have any memories of the media response to the Kent State Shootings in the aftermath?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: The media that I remember was saying about how all these rioting students were doing this and that and it sounded like they were blaming the world on the students and how out of control they were. That was—as far as I'm concerned, that was patently false. Were there events downtown? Yeah, there were a couple, but it wasn't—the students were basically good students, and for them to be demonized, I thought was most unfortunate.

 

[Interviewer]: How have the events surrounding May 4 and its aftermath impacted you personally, professionally, and or politically?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Well, after May 4th, I began working for Dr. [David] Ambler in the Student Activities Office. And it was—I went from the Student Activities Office to his office. And May 4th was—it rapidly became a historical event and not an active event. The students would remember May 4th on its anniversary. But I can tell you that there was more damage done to the town, more damage done on the university, after the university opened in the fall of, what was it, ‘70, then there was leading up to the shootings. I was in, at that time, I was working in Dr. Ambler's office as an assistant to the Vice President for Student Affairs and I volunteered to be the staff member that went to all the rallies day and night. Nobody else wanted the job, I guess, but anyway, that's what I did.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you ever hesitant to return back to Kent State University once the campus resumed classes?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Oh, heavens no. I love the place.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you recall if any faculty, staff, or administrators addressed the events publicly or privately once the students returned?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I can honestly say I don't remember.

 

[Interviewer]: Out of curiosity, have you returned to campus to attend any commemorative events or memorials honoring those wounded and killed? And if so, can you describe the feelings you've had in attending those events?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: I have not gone back for any of the memorial events. Cheryl and I moved to Arizona, shortly after, and then I moved around the country in different jobs. When I got back to Kent, I took a job with the Kent City Schools and was close enough. And Cheryl and I would visit the campus, not specifically to attend any May 4th events, but we did walk around and see where all the activity markers were and so forth.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you have any specific memories of walking on campus after returning?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Yeah, it was different. But it was—you knew what happened. And we still felt that it was a tragic, avoidable event.

 

[Interviewer]: Is there anything else you would like to talk about that we haven't covered yet today?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No, except I really—the students back then were well-mannered, well-behaved students. And I felt that they were being blamed for things well beyond their control. And that's what I would hope people would figure out and remember.

 

[Interviewer]: Is there anything you would want students today to know about those events that took place?

 

[Chuck Sackett]: No. If you look at how many years it's been, there are people attending Kent State now that weren't even born back then. I think that they will be sensitized to the events as they attend Kent State and as they learn about the events, but I don't think I could add anything.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, I want to thank you, Chuck, for agreeing to participate in the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project. And if there's anything else you want to bring up at this time, let me know. Otherwise, we will end the recording.

 

[Chuck Sackett]: Okay. Yeah. Go ahead and end.

 

[End of Recording]

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