Recorded statements of Carol Button and Hazel Young, conducted by the Commission on KSU Violence.

[John Ohles]: Well, we’ll start over again, Carol. This is John Ohles, June 18th, 1970. Well, now I know something about what you saw, so would you start and tell us what happened on Sunday night, on May the third?

[Carol Button]: Well, we saw people come in the front doors of the library, we saw people marching down the streets, and shortly after that when people started milling around outside of the doors of the building. And we couldn’t see much after that. We had one person working at the desk taking care of the students who were checking out books. We were pretending that nothing was going on. I did hear a girl–two girls talking on the stairwell. One of the girls said that she had been climbing in a window and a National Guardsmen had hit her with his gun and she yelled, “Ouch!” and one of his friends had told him, “Hey, you’re hitting a girl.” So, she said he helped her through a window. And at the time, she felt it was funny. But to me, considering the seriousness of what was going on outside, it seemed like it was kind of a lighter aspect of the whole thing.

[John Ohles]: Okay, would you talk again about what you know about the girl who was injured?

[Carol Button]: I don’t really know anything about the girl that was injured. All I know was that the Guard called the police for an ambulance because somebody had been hurt. They didn’t say whether she had been injured or whether she was just sick or what had gone wrong. They just said that somebody needed help and the ambulance came in a few minutes.

[John Ohles]: Okay, then would you talk about how the library was closed and then tell about you getting home?

[Carol Button]: Well, we had the doors locked at least an hour. We weren’t letting people into the building, and we understood that there were National Guardsmen outside the building who were letting people in, and all of a sudden, they just came in and said, “The building is closed.”

[John Ohles]: Now, if you had the doors locked, how did the Guard let people in?

[Carol Button]: I don’t know exactly what happened. They probably, you know, got in touch after the Guard who was there. He was standing fairly close to the door keeping an eye on the situation there.

[John Ohles]: And also, apparently a number of people came through windows, didn’t they?

[Carol Button]: I know I heard at least one girl said that she did.

[John Ohles]: Okay, and the Guard then cleared out the building–the Guard and perhaps the highway patrol–but at any rate, uniformed people

[cross talk]

[Carol Button]: The building. They took the students, they were leaving.

[John Ohles]: And they checked out the building?

[Carol Button]: Yes. [unintelligible]

[John Ohles]: Now, would you again tell us about getting a pass and you trying to get home?

[Carol Button]: Okay, Mr. Amerine came in about eight o’clock that night because he was afraid there were going to be problems. He wanted to be there if there were any. He had contacted somebody, I don’t know who, he was on the phone all evening trying to call people. He had contacted somebody who had told him that he could make up [unintelligible]. He, evidently, did it on his own [unintelligible]. He said that we had been working at the library and we had to get home. So I left the library and got in my car and there was a crowd down by the corner of Lincoln and Main. I had to go through that crowd to get home, so I decided to try to go around them. They wouldn’t let me up front of the Administration Building which was the only other way I had to get in that direction. I showed them my pass, and they said, “Sorry, [unintelligible]” They weren’t going to let me through for any reason. So, I had to go through the [unintelligible].

[John Ohles]: And you had the car then? I didn’t realize that before.

[Carol Button]: Yes.

[John Ohles]: Okay then, how did you drive to get over to Midway Drive?

[Carol Button]: I’m sorry, did I–is this Midway Drive? I’m not quite sure of the–I wanted to get up in front of the Administration Building.

[John Ohles]: I see. I think that’s Hilltop or something.

[Carol Button]: Hilltop? Well, that was the drive I tried to use.

[John Ohles]: Okay. So eventually you did get off the campus [unintelligible]. Alright, anything else? I think you said that you were not present–

[End of interview with Carol Button.]

[John Ohles]: This is June 18th, 1970, and I’m talking to Mrs. Hazel Young at the library. What I would like to do would be to have you tell me what you saw on Sunday, May the 3rd. [unintelligible]

[Hazel Young]: This was Sunday evening, I had been working since one o’clock that afternoon and there really there isn’t too much that we saw actually outside because we were inside working and carrying on our jobs and didn’t see what was going on outside. We could hear a little noise and that there was a crowd gathering at the intersection of Lincoln and Main Street. But until actually–it was around I think, oh, possibly, between a quarter after eight and a quarter of nine, somewhere in there, that we actually began to hear something around the library. We could hear loud shouting and that type of thing. Although we didn’t know what was going on because, of course, we couldn’t see anything out that way at all. Then we saw some young people running up the aisle in the back. At the time, we didn’t know where they were coming from, but–

[John Ohles]: Now, what do you call the back?

[Hazel Young]: Well, the back is actually the front because what we call the front is where we are in the new building where the circulation desk is, that’s what I speak of as the front.

[cross talk]

[John Ohles]: From the Old Building.

[Hazel Young]: And the back would be actually the part that was facing Main Street. We saw some girls and a couple of younger fellows coming–students, I expected, were coming up the hallway and they stopped there in front of the circulation desk and I did overhear one of the girls say that a Guard had helped her through a window. Now, apparently she was trying to get away from the crowd that was outside, or something. I wouldn’t say that’s what she was doing, but I did hear her say that the Guard had helped her through the window–one of the National Guards had helped her through the window. And then, of course, shortly after that, they sealed off the building and didn’t let anyone in or out and told us to remain there until we were allowed to go out. After that, of course, there wasn’t too much that we [unintelligible] personal observations.

[John Ohles]: Where were you stationed at? The circulation desk?

[Hazel Young]: At the circulation desk.

[John Ohles]: Do you know anything about the girl who was injured?

[Hazel Young]: No, I don’t. I heard that there was someone on the second floor for whom they called an ambulance. I heard another girl talking, but this is just what I could get snatches of the conversation that was making that the girl came up and said to me [unintelligible].

[John Ohles]: Do you know anything about any blood that was in the building?

[Hazel Young]: No.

[John Ohles]: Was this girl supposed to be in a washroom on the second floor?

[Hazel Young]: I just heard someone come down the stairs there right beside the circulation desk come down from the second floor and I heard her ask to have an ambulance called, that someone had either fainted or was at least lying on the floor, or in a horizontal position. I don’t know whether she was on the floor, or on a chair, or what, I don’t know.

[John Ohles]: Okay, fine. Are there any other comments or any events at any other time with reference to what went on on campus?

[Hazel Young]: No, I wasn’t actually on campus at the time of the other happenings on Monday. I had left at noon because I was supposed to work Monday night, so I wasn’t on campus at that time. This was actually going on on campus when there wasn’t anything happening.

[John Ohles]: Okay, and nothing on Friday or Saturday?

[Hazel Young]: No.

[John Ohles]: Okay, fine. Alright, well thank you very much. ×