Richard Ellers, Oral History

Recorded: July 23, 2015
Interviewed by Rennie Greenfield
Transcribed by Amanda Faehnel

Note: This transcript includes geo-references to locations that are discussed in the oral history. Geographical names linked in the transcript will open in a new window or tab that takes you to that location information and map in the Mapping May 4 project. To request a transcript without geo-reference links included, please contact Kent State University Special Collections & Archives.

[Interviewer]: This is Rennie Greenfield speaking on July 23, 2015 at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives as part of the May 4 Oral History Project. I will be talking today with Richard Ellers and before we begin I'd like to get just a few background biographical details if you can. Where were you born?

[Richard Ellers]: I was born in New Haven, Connecticut, grew up in upstate New York--little town called Amsterdam--and in the Navy, in World War II, and when we had education rights--what are they called?--but anyhow when you were discharged, you went to a counselor, and by then I'd been into photography and worked part time in the newspaper, and I said, I'm going to do news photography. And they gave me a list of schools, like Columbia, Syracuse, and then Kent. And I didn't want to go to a big school, so I picked Kent, and here I am, really happy with it.

[Interviewer]: What year did you come to Kent State?

[Richard Ellers]: I came to Kent State in January '47 but I didn't get my degree until June of '53. I dropped out a couple times and ran out of money. The GI Bill--and I ran out of GI Bill money, but anyway, long story short, but I came here and it was very well-known nationally as a journalism school and the photography short course--they don't still do that, do they?

[Interviewer]: I believe they do, actually.

[Richard Ellers]: Oh, do they? Well, I got involved in that, and as a student, I met some big time news people here. They came in from all around. So, as I said, I dropped out, then finally in '53, got my degree--

[Interviewer]: In journalism or photojournalism?

[Richard Ellers]: Journalism.

[Interviewer]: Just journalism?

[Richard Ellers]: It was both. News and news photography. And I had some friends--can you turn that off for a second?

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One of the interesting things is, as I say, I dropped out, and I came back over Christmas vacation to visit some friends here in Ohio. And I stopped on campus and James [Michael] Radock, a prof who--I did not get along real well with him over the years, but he said, "You never got your--?" No. "You ought to come back. They're looking for--" So, at his suggestion, I came back, got my degree. Warren close by. I interviewed. At the time, I didn't aspire at the time for the Plain Dealer, but anyhow, make a long story short, so I came to Ohio, worked at the [Warren] Tribune, and then became, oh that was '53, and I met a guy from the Plain Dealer, a reporter, and he kept urging me to go to the Plain Dealer. So in '65, I did, and I worked maybe a year and a half and the commute was just a pain. We didn't want to live in Cleveland--my wife, so I gave my notice. And I had a job at the Youngstown Mitigator lined up. And this friend, Wilson Hirschfeld, "Hey," he says, "I heard you gave your--I didn't want you to do that." I said, "Why?" He said, "Because I'm becoming state editor and I wanted you as my roving reporter. Can you change your mind?" I said, "I just did." (laughs)

So I called the people up and the guy in Youngstown was real nice, he said, "Oh, that's fine. I understand." And what the deal was, made it really nice, my bureau was in my house. (laughs) I was on company time. When I left the driveway, I was on company mileage, you know, and it was great. I had the whole state. Probably 80 percent of my work was Northeastern Ohio, but I got to Cincinnati, I got to--I had the plum of jobs in newspapers. It really was.

I was a photographer too. In those days, reporters weren't allowed to carry cameras, but if you were off-site, you could. And there were two of us, and photography was one of my big loves, so I got to do that and it was just great. I did features in between disasters. Met a lot of interesting people and I'll tell you a funny--I love to tell this story: At Rootstown, the new medical hospital, when it was new, it was called Northeast Ohio University College of Medicine and I went there for a news conference of some kind and the son of some close friends of ours was there in this room, and we're standing there and Governor Celeste walks into the room. He walks straight over to me, "Richard, how are you?" This kid was impressed. He told his folks. (laughs) Don't be impressed. Politicians look for the news, they make contact right away.

But it was a great job. I got to meet a lot of governors, a lot of--it was a variety job. I didn't want a beat. I'd had a beat at the Warren paper. I was a police reporter and I was trying to get off the police beat, and oh well, sooner or later, so then I was really frustrated and--turn that off a second.

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After that, I left the Tribune and came to the Plain Dealer and worked cityside for a year, a year and a half, gave my notice. Wilson Hirschfeld, who had been a roving reporter at the Columbus bureau was then state editor and he convinced me to stay and set me up with a bureau in my house. You can't beat that. I worked from home. They would assign me, but in between what they needed, I was free. I went out and did features, I did all kinds--met all kinds of interesting people in Ohio. I mean, the whole state, and I'm trying to think off the top of my head. I'll send you a note when I sit down and think about it, but go ahead--

[Interviewer]: Were you assigned features, or did you have the freedom to come up with them on your own?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh no. I would find them, call it in, and say, Yeah, go ahead. They very seldom turned them down until my last state editor. My last state editor--in fact, I retired at sixty-five. I wasn't ready to retire, but he was such a pain in the ass. And I didn't realize, had I complained, that they would have done something. So at my retirement party at the Plain Dealer, (unintelligible) because of this son of a bitch, blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out, other people complained. A week later, he was bounced back to reporter, but by then I'd retired. But as I say, it was a great job and I met, you know, people from--a blacksmith somewhere that did real interesting work, and then when they had floods and major forest fires, I was in forest fires, walked in with a fireman to get--oh yeah.

And in those days, I carried a portable typewriter. Sat wherever I was, wrote my story, got to a phone and dictated it.

[Interviewer]: Called it in.

[Richard Ellers]: And it was interesting because the people they had taking dictation would bitch once in a while that I didn't pronounce well and I would bitch that they weren't listening, you know, but we got through it. And then came computers, and I had one of the first. It was called a TeleRam. Have you ever seen one? Great big box, but you wrote on it at this little screen, and then you went to a phone and you plugged in a modem, like a coupling. Did that until--oh, Tandy came out with a portable, and I looked at it and I said, I called the office and I said, "Now we're doing." And it was real great because by then, you'd figured out a way to take the phone apart and clip onto the terminals and all this kind of stuff. Made it real nice. A lot of the stuff I wrote after I got home because I was doing features, you know. And then I would develop my film and send the negatives. Now, interesting thing about that--are you into journalism?

[Interviewer]: Absolutely.

[Richard Ellers]: Okay.

[Interviewer]: There's still a fairly good journalism school here at Kent.

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. Interesting thing was, the photographers at the Plain Dealer did not like reporters carrying cameras.

[Interviewer]: Stepping on their turf so to speak or--

[Richard Ellers]: Well, yeah. But I would send negatives out and mark the ones I wanted, clip the edge. They did beautiful work for me, I mean I would take a picture with something in mind, you know, and by God, they would pick up on it, and my pictures in the Plain Dealer, God bless those photographers, they resented me but they couldn't help do their best work.

[Interviewer]: So you were a roving reporter in 1970? In the spring of 1970?

[Richard Ellers]: Yes. And I came over here, well, I was in several places in Ohio those weeks. There were war protests all over the state. I was at Ohio State, I think OU [Ohio University], and one other campus I can't remember, and then Kent State. And I'd been doing the war protests for about a week.

[Interviewer]: So you were very aware of the protest movement.

[Richard Ellers]: Oh, God.

[Interviewer]: What was your general sense of what was going on? Did you have a take on it, or was it--

[Richard Ellers]: Oh, well, see this may sound funny but I was very altruistic as a reporter. I avoided--people would say, and I knew other reporters who would do a story and they'd sympathize with what side they're interviewing. That's not allowed.

[Interviewer]: Sure.

[Richard Ellers]: You've got to be objective. The one thing I did notice was, and I've never seen a lot about this, but in the protests, not just here but also in Columbus, there were roving troublemakers. They were not campus people but I can't tell whether they were true antiwar protesters, or they just liked to get involved and stir things up. Those kind of people.

The night before the shooting they called me, said, "There's a strike at a school in--nope, go to the strike." So I'm there.

[Interviewer]: So this was in Struthers, Ohio?

[Richard Ellers]: Struthers, yeah. And I'm not there more than half an hour, get on the phone, call your office, there was a shooting at Kent State. I'd have been here otherwise, so I missed a big story.

[Interviewer]: You had planned to be here that day?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. Because I'd been here every day. Almost every day, and--

[Interviewer]: What was your sense at that time, if you don't mind me just stepping back just a little bit, what was your sense of the relationship, or what was going on in between the community and the protesters? Did you have a sense of how it was being received by people who lived in the community?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. I lot of the people just did not like the protest, but it was more--I didn't know if they were anti-antiwar, or just upset because the students were bringing a lot of people to town. I mean, the population of Kent State then was still a major portion of the city's population. And I knew some people here from having lived here when I was a student. I lived in a private home. And people were--I won't say they didn't like the protest, but they didn't like all this intrusion. Is that the best word I can think of? Of out of town, now there was a lot of, now I didn't do it, but there was a lot of--I don't know what you think of TV people. I don't. And there was a lot of cameras in town asking the people what they felt, you know, and that was, they didn't like that, but what are you going to do?

Now I'm trying to think when you're asking me the attitude of the townspeople. They didn't like all the commotion. The police department was involved, of course and they weren't too happy to have to be out here working on covering the campus. Then they sent the state guard, the National Guard in and what nobody ever thought of that their rifles were loaded with real ammo. Because they had used blanks at burials and stuff, ceremonial. And nobody in their--I didn't, I couldn't believe that they were carrying live ammunition. Who made that decision? Who knows? But it was tough, and of course, when I got there, there was a committee formed of faculty--a woman who, well she was a sister of a classmate of mine here, she was a professor here--a faculty committee to look into it. And they were not happy with the way the administration had treated the student dissent, and that they maybe could have de-fueled it a little better, but who knows, you know, that's all retrospect.

And of course, me having been a graduate, the tragedy was kind of--and in fact the interesting thing was, a side issue, but I got a telegram the next day after the shootings from my relatives in Connecticut. My aunt, who was my godmother, telegrammed simply because of what happened at my alma mater, which I thought was really interesting, but that's neither here nor there. What else was I going to think to tell you?

[Interviewer]: If you don't mind me asking, I know as a journalist, you didn't allow yourself an opinion one way or the other, staying objective, but were you personally politically active at the time? Did you have feelings yourself about the war or the student protest movement in general?

[Richard Ellers]: No, I was pretty good at disassociating myself. I'd been to several campuses those weeks.

[Interviewer]: Had you seen clashes between, obviously not the National Guard, but police and students at other campuses?

[Richard Ellers]: Not that I remember, but you know, I could have. I remember at Ohio State what was funny was there was a mob and I stopped one guy, and I says, "I want to ask you a question." "I don't give interviews." Well, fine. So I walked away. Don't shit on me, fella. But it was interesting because some of the kids were very self-possessed with their importance. Now that you say that, I do remember that some of them felt, this is our cause, we're important. And then I came back a few years later--oh, they were going to build the gym on the shooting site. Well, that started a big protest and I came back and I spent a week here with the protesters about it. They never did build that gym there.

[Interviewer]: They did. They did, yeah.

[Richard Ellers]: Oh did they? I lost track.

[Interviewer]: Yeah, I definitely want to come back to that, because the Tent City protests were a pretty big deal, I remember at the time.

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. I was there.

[Interviewer]: But that weekend, when you heard that the ROTC building had been burned down and the National Guard--

[Richard Ellers]: I was there.

[Interviewer]: You were here the night the building was burned down?

[Richard Ellers]: Yeah. The picture in the Plain Dealer was mine.

[Interviewer]: Oh. Were you interviewing students that evening or--

[Richard Ellers]: Yeah. Well, when you're covering something like that, you don't really interview, at times, but mostly you're just observing what's going on.

[Interviewer]: What do you remember about that night?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh, you know, the kids, they were really wound up. Now, you asked me, I did object that they went overboard in this respect. Setting fire to the building, but they went out and wrastled the firemen and threw the firemen to the ground. That irked the shit out of me. You know, so you set the building on fire, but then to go out and grab the firemen and pull them down, that wasn't right. And again, kind of off the record, yeah--

pause in recording

[Interviewer]: So do you have any other memories of that evening, of what was going on, or were you able to speak to any of the people in town? I understand there were shop owners on their roofs with rifles trying to prevent the students from coming downtown.

[Richard Ellers]: I didn't get into town much. I did know a couple people from my years here. They were really unhappy. One: they didn't like the protests. They thought that was wrong. And number two: they didn't like the publicity, the negative publicity it was bringing to Kent. Even though it was Kent State University campus, Kent was the focus, and they didn't like that. I don't know what else I can tell you. When I heard about the shooting I was stunned and I got here obviously as fast as I could. And unfortunately, from a newsman side, they sent two heavy hitters down from Cleveland, two of their favorite: Mike Roberts, and you've heard of Joe Eszterhas? Who turns out to be a fabricator, and--

[Interviewer]: So that Monday morning you were called to cover the teacher's strike in Struthers. Did you actually get anything done on that, or were you called away before you could--

[Richard Ellers]: I had only been there maybe a half an hour or so--

[Interviewer]: When you were called away.

[Richard Ellers]: When they tracked me down.

[Interviewer]: And you drove immediately to Kent?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. And whatever notes I had from that Struthers thing, I threw away. I don't even know if we covered it. But right, I drove straight to Kent and--

[Interviewer]: Were you able to get into town? Because the National Guard had road blocks--

[Richard Ellers]: Yeah, I had my press pass. They did honor those, and two of the faculty here were personal friends of mine. One of them is dead now, oh dear, Boo. Her nickname was Boo, it will come to me in a minute. And she was on a committee of professors, of faculty, that reviewed it. As I remember, you might look it up, they were a little critical of the administration, but I'm not positive--that the administration could have done more.

[Interviewer]: When you were driving here, obviously there's no road map for a shooting like that, but did you have a strategy of, as a reporter, when I get to Kent, this is what I'll try to do to cover this story? Is there--

[Richard Ellers]: Oh, no. Maybe you think ahead too far. I just knew I was going there. I did not map out in my mind--I just knew I had to find out what was going on, and no, I don't think I ever thought of anything. With a feature story, you know, in your mind, you line up things you know you want to cover, and with a news story, it's the same thing, but driving over, I just wanted to get here. In fact, I had the radio on, listening, poking among the radio stations for reports about it.

[Interviewer]: Did they have accurate reports at that moment, because as I also understand, there was a lot of misinformation going on the first couple of hours.

[Richard Ellers]: I can't tell you if they were accurate or not, of course, I don't think much of broadcast media. Tell you a little secret, and this was true right until the day I retired. When I'd go to a news conference, I learned to wait, when they'd have a conference afterwards for some event, until the broadcast media had got done. And I'd wait until they'd left, because I'd find out they watched us experienced reporters and waited for us to ask the questions. And I thought, it'd suddenly dawned on me after a few years, that's screwy. Why should I give them the benefit of--because they didn't know what to ask. So I would wait, and when they would finally pack up their gear, then I'd go to whoever it was and say, "By the way--," because they were parasites, is the only word I can think of.

[Interviewer]: Kind of feeding off the professional journalists.

[Richard Ellers]: Right. As an aside to this, again, I don't think much of them, but even then, they would ask me what was going on. Well, what's the deal here? You're a reporter, do your own, you know, I'm not going to. And the other grueling part of it was the broadcast media were famous. Well, the Plain Dealer was good about that. They very seldom publicized the media, but I'm a working reporter. I work my ass off, I get a byline, but that's all. They get their pictures up, and you go somewhere as a news reporter, and the TV reporters are there, the people flock to them. Now you're hitting my sore spot. (laughs)

[Interviewer]: Well, okay, then do you remember when you said you just want to get to Kent, so your press credentials were accepted by the National Guard, you were in town, do you remember what you did or what your steps were right after that?

[Richard Ellers]: I came to campus to find out what was going on and, God, you're asking me something--I went to the area where the bodies--they'd been taken away by the time I got here, but the area was cordoned off with tape and as I remember they put some markers, and they even marked a stone that had been hit by one of the rifles. People were dumbstruck, I will say, awestruck, that the live ammo. That floored a lot of people. And Governor--

[Interviewer]: Rhodes?

[Richard Ellers]: Yeah, got criticized for overdoing the Guard. Well, I don't blame him for that, and he wouldn't have known that they were carrying live ammo, but yeah, this was a place where you needed--the local police just didn't have enough people to control it. They were getting really unruly. And is the bell still in the back?

[Interviewer]: It is.

[Richard Ellers]: Well, they were ringing the damn bell to draw a crowd.

[Interviewer]: Were there still students? Because the students I believe were told to go back to their homes and their rooms. Were there students milling about or still around?

[Richard Ellers]: Some.

[Interviewer]: Faculty or was there anybody else kind of out and about?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. Well, see now, we're getting my mind between then and the Tent City, but during the actual protest in '70, there were a couple of profs who, I felt, were guiding the kids, were helping them, which I felt was wrong. I can't even tell you the name of one of them. I confronted him about it. "I'm just doing what I should do." Well, if you want to urge these kids, fine, but that's--what else? We're going back forty years?

[Interviewer]: Forty-five.

[Richard Ellers]: Forty-five years?

[Interviewer]: Yeah, plus now. Do you remember anything about writing up that story or how you wrote it that day, or did you do follow-up pieces?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. I looked through my notebook. I have a scrapbook of clips, and as I say, these two guys from Cleveland, reporters, got the main story, and I did sidebars all the way along, which ground the shit out of me, but yeah. I went through my notebooks, my scrapbook last week, just trying to see if there's anything that I could tell you that I remember. Obviously, I didn't save my notebooks. People were stunned. Faculty members here, everybody was stunned by the deaths, there was no question about that and a student photographer, who was interning I think who made the famous picture of the girl over the body--

[Interviewer]: The Newsweek.

[Richard Ellers]: Yeah, it was in the, was it the [Akron] Beacon [Journal] first? I don't know, but then it hit the wires. I often wondered how she made out later in life. You ought to track her down.

[Interviewer]: She's been to a couple of the memorials, yeah, on May fourth. They do a memorial every year, and I think she has been to a few of them.

[Richard Ellers]: How is she?

[Interviewer]: I don't know her personally, no. Did you cover other student protests after this, or was that pretty much--

[Richard Ellers]: Well, after that, there weren't many student protests. That chilled them. Before that, I'd been to Columbus, been to OU in Athens, and maybe Wright State, you know, we're going back a long ways. But no, obviously, they were chilled, the antiwar thing, and oh carry on.

[Interviewer]: Well, I guess we can jump ahead then to the Tent City protest, because I think it was 1977?

[Richard Ellers]: Oh yeah. Yeah, they were going to build a gym--

[Interviewer]: A memorial gym over that.

[Richard Ellers]: And they started the protest. And that was a different group. They were protesters, but not as virulent as they had been, because the war was active at the time and the Tent City was protesting a building, not a war, but they were pretty well-organized. I'm trying to think of a couple of the names, but they got the TV media involved. They knew they were playing it for all they were worth. And they were nice to me, I mean I had no problem, but it was hysterical because the media, the TV cameras, reporters, were milling around and trying to get a handle on it, but the kids, the Tent City kids played them like a piano. Just knew how to--they'd set up and we're going to do this. Now Tent City, I don't remember how long it lasted. I never looked that up in my clips. I could send you--

[Interviewer]: Was it something you were assigned to, or was that was your choice as a roving reporter--

[Richard Ellers]: Well, a little of both, I guess. I knew it was happening, I called the office.

[Interviewer]: Did it get much national attention at the time?

[Richard Ellers]: I don't remember. See, now, as an aside, with the editors at the time, I had pretty much free reign. I mean, they had things they wanted me to do, but the rest of the time, almost always, like Tent City, well there was no question I'd be there and they sent a photographer down from Cleveland. And you have to remember, in those days, film cameras. If I had a camera, I'd send them the film, raw, on a bus--next bus out to Cleveland it was called, on the Greyhound Bus from anywhere in Ohio and they developed it up there. If it was a feature, I developed the film at home, mark my negative. What else? I know the Cleveland Press was down here, but I can't remember who. And of course, the Beacon was all over the place. There was a woman reporter at the Beacon who was really sharp. Can't think of her name.

[Interviewer]: Is there anything I haven't asked about that you remember and want to--

[Richard Ellers]: Oh gee, that's an open-ended--

[Interviewer]: Yeah, you have free reign.

[Richard Ellers]: Well, again, I was indoctrinated here in college about keeping yourself out of your work. You write the story that you see. And so it was not easy being an alumni to see all this going on at my college. Well, see I graduated in '53, so that was seventeen years later, so none of my profs were around, a lot of fellow students. Now there was a guy, God, I wish I could think of his name. He was a schoolteacher, graduate, alumni, that got himself involved with the protesters and he helped show them around, you know, do this, do that.

[Interviewer]: In May of 1970 or in the Tent City?

[Richard Ellers]: Tent City. Tent City, and then, oh, what's his name who got shot and was in a wheelchair?

[Interviewer]: Alan Canfora?

[Richard Ellers]: No, Alan Canfora was shot and I knew him. He worked us, he worked the press good. But there was a guy from central Ohio in a wheelchair.

[Interviewer]: I know who you're talking about, I can't think of the name right now.

[Richard Ellers]: Another nice guy. He came back for things and was a good interview.

[Interviewer]: You've talked about how you stayed objective when covering this. Did you have a sense of the way the national media were covering it? Was it objective or--

[Richard Ellers]: I don't remember.

[Interviewer]: No? You didn't pay attention to other news outlets?

[Richard Ellers]: No, well, you know, I'd see it, and I'd say, Oh gee, they got this wrong or that, but you know--

[Interviewer]: I'm just wondering about national bias and the news media at the time. Did they swing one way or the other?

[Richard Ellers]: Didn't remember anything, no. I'm wracking my brain to think, I probably did but I don't remember anything special. Some of the national people were assholes, but that's my opinion, I'm biased. And in fact, that was the one thing that made it bad was they'd come in here and the locals would flock to them, because they'd want to be on national news, and it just irritated us local reporters because here they'd come, these people, and the locals would forget you were even there.

[Interviewer]: The Kent State residents?

[Richard Ellers]: Well, not just Kent State. Period. Any people in Kent, people around, and this happened in all kinds of stories, when the national media would show up, forget it. You got to wait until they get done and then go back. But as I told you before, the pride in it was, they'd just skim the surface, and you'd let them go. I learned early not to be their reporter. And again, what was funny was--I guess I don't know if it was funny--but you could wait on them. You knew they weren't going to be there all day. They had to get somewhere, pack up and go. So you'd wait for them to pack up and go, and then you'd sit down with whoever it was and do your interview.

[Interviewer]: News cycle was a much different thing I think.

[Richard Ellers]: Well and obviously, as you'd said, I learned early on that I'd been taken advantage of and from the competition that you despise, you realize: I'm not going to help any more. And I didn't have, obviously, I didn't have their deadlines. I could afford to wait.

[Interviewer]: Well, thank you very much for helping us with the Oral History Project today. We very much appreciate you coming in.

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