Lynn Laugel Savron, Oral History

 

Recorded: May 13, 2020

Interviewed by: Kathleen Siebert Medicus

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Interviewer]: This is Kathleen Siebert Medicus speaking on Wednesday, May 13, 2020, in Kent, Ohio 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?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Hi, my name is Lynn Savron. My maiden name was Laugel.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. Thank you, Lynn, I want to thank you so much for working with me today and being so generous and sharing your memories and experiences, I really appreciate it.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I’m privileged to do so. It’s something I was hoping would be done over the 50^th anniversary, so, this is great.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you. To begin, I’d like to start with just some brief information about your background, so we get to know you a little better. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Absolutely! I was raised in Fairview Park, Ohio which is a western suburb of Cleveland. I attended Catholic schools all the way through high school. So, I led a rather sheltered life. My high school was all girls, so it was very strict, and in my Catholic family I was the oldest. So, I had a very sheltered life.

 

[Interviewer]: And was that, do you mind telling us where you went to high school?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I went to Saint Joseph Academy which is on the west side of Cleveland. Saint Angela Merici grade school in Fairview Park.  

 

[Interviewer]: Okay. And when did you first come as a college student to Kent State?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I graduated from high school in ’67, so I started that fall and I lived in the freshmen complex in Allyn Hall and lived there for one year, and then moved to Koonce Hall, which is in Tri-Towers. I was the first class to be in that dorm, which was kind of exciting.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, right, it was a new building.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: It was brand new, yeah, which was really neat. That’s where I was when the shootings happened because it happened my junior year.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:02:28] And what brought you to Kent State? Was there a particular thing you were interested in studying, or?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Actually, I started out to be a chemistry major and that didn’t last too long, and I went to Kent because they offered me a significant scholarship which helped greatly financially. The only two schools I was really interested were Bowling Green or Kent and Kent was a little closer and offered me some money, so that kind of sealed the deal.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:03:06] Is there anything, are there any memories that kind of stick out from those first couple of years of what life was like on campus?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: It was culture shock to me after having been in a very sheltered environment in an all-girls, Catholic school. I really was shocked having guys in class. It was very distracting, I do remember that because I just really didn’t know how to . . .  after that, I started dating and had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends, and I was pretty social.

 

After my freshman year, I really fell into some I guess I would say bad habits. My life actually fell apart. I had really put behind me the kind of upbringing I’d had all those years and I was actually a very unhappy person because I really let myself down in a lot of ways. So, I grappled with that all the time. I was just disappointed in myself, involved in things I really should not have been involved in, and didn’t really know how to extricate myself. So, fast forward to junior year, that was my mental and spiritual and emotional state.

 

[Interviewer]: Was there a rift with your family—opinions about the Vietnam War or?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, not really, no it wasn’t. It was very personal, very personal, yeah. And by the, in my junior year, right before the Kent State incident happened, I was enrolled in what was called the Akron City Neighborhood Program. It was a program that was very selective. It just had, I can’t remember how many students, but we were actually bussed into Akron every day and learned about the neighborhoods there. Basically, it was almost a Black studies thing which was really eye-opening to me because having been very sheltered in lily-white Fairview Park in white, Catholic schools, it was really a revelation. I appreciated it. I enjoyed it. That’s where I met some of the students who were rather radical and I kind of joined their ranks.

 

[Interviewer]: Was that part of the honors and experimental college? Were you in the honors college?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I don’t recall being in the honors college. This was a sociology course, but it was everything. You had to put everything else aside. That’s all you did was that course. I think it was like twelve hours and that’s what you did with your day. You had homework to do, of course, but you didn’t go to any other classes. You had to devote yourself completely to this.

 

[Interviewer]: It was like intensive for that quarter. Interesting.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: It was, it was.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you really embrace that class? You learned a lot, you found—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, I did. And it was eye-opening, and I made some very good friends and really expanded my thinking and got to know people who were very different from me.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:06:51] Do you, could you paint a picture for us of how aware or how visible protest movements on campus were, say in your sophomore year maybe?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I don’t even recall any in my sophomore year. I truly don’t. I wasn’t involved in anything like that at that time, so it really kind of became personal and I became much more aware in my junior year.

 

[Interviewer]: And partly with that class and the new friends you were making?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:07:29] Are there any protests on campus that you vividly remember?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, no. Oh, well there’s one and it was right beforehand. I was with a group from this Akron City Neighborhood Program the night before, or no, a couple of nights before the shootings. We were having a party and I think it might have been in Ravenna. All I remember the site of it was a very high elevation, so we were able to look down on the campus and we saw the ROTC building in flames.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, from a distance.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: And from a distance, yeah. And of course, that’s when, as I recall, right after that was when Martial Law was declared and of course the ROTC building was a shack. It was just a little wooden structure like almost a garage, so people think, ‘Oh, they destroyed the ROTC building, how horrible.’ Well, it wasn’t exactly something to brag about. 

 

[Interviewer]: You’re right, it was small.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: But, I mean, it was terrible, but that’s when they shut down the campus and declared Martial Law and some of my more vivid memories were walking across the campus and seeing National Guard everywhere, especially in front of the ROTC building. I remember being in Koonce and Tri-Towers. We were on the eighth floor, and I remember helicopters coming and hovering in front of our windows and they’d call out to the girls, “Hey, throw your panties, throw your panties.” And people would do that. They’d throw panties out the window!

 

[Interviewer]: So, wait a minute, people—who was saying that?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: The National Guard was.

 

[Interviewer]: In the helicopters?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I think so, I could be wrong about that, but maybe they were on the ground, but I just remember there was a pretty good response there.

 

[Interviewer]: So, this would be on Sunday, probably then? The day after—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I’m not sure of the timing. I really don’t recall.

 

[Interviewer]: But after you were at that party where you could see the ROTC building?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yes, it was after the Guard had been brought in, yeah. The Guard had already been brought in and one of the things under Martial Law was we were not permitted to go out at night. So, being defiant as I was, I went out at night. I remember walking over to the speech building, Speech and Drama Building [editor’s clarification: Music and Speech Building] from Koonce, thinking to myself, ‘They’re not going to kill me. They’re not going to shoot me.’ And I remember a helicopter coming over and it’s like, I was pretty scared, but I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way they’re going to shoot me. They don’t want blood on their hands.’ So, those are my two most vivid memories of right before the shooting, the day before the shooting or whatever.

 

[Interviewer]: And that’s, I’m looking at the 1970 map. From Koonce Hall to the education buildings? That’s­­­—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, it was Speech and Drama.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, okay, right. Music and Speech Building.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: That’s still a decent walk.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: It was a decent hike. So that was just kind of, it shows how defiant I was at the time.

 

[Interviewer]: Were you afraid at all that night? Like going out after curfew and—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, I was, I mean, I was taking a risk, so I was a little afraid when the helicopter was up overhead, but I did it anyway. I didn’t go running back. I thought, ‘You know, I better act cool because if I start running, then they’re going to think that I’m guilty of doing something,’ so, but that was just stupid. Really stupid.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you feel like the helicopter was following you, like did they have a—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, yeah. I was the only one out as far as I recall, there was nobody out and I wasn’t supposed to be out, so yeah, yeah, crazy.

 

[Interviewer]: And then later, you got back to your dorm okay? You weren’t stopped—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, yeah. I don’t even know what I was doing over there. I think it was just to see if I could.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah. Well, you think about adolescent psychology, so yeah. Tell an adolescent not to do something, odds are—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: When you came back to campus on Saturday from that gathering in Ravenna, do you have any memories from that?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, I just remember walking around the campus, and it was just, there was a lot of resentment about the National Guard being all over the place because they were like taking over our campus and our freedoms and they had guns. It’s like, what the heck. Over an ROTC building? It was just scary. It was very somber and a lot of resentment about that. Yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:13:03] From there, you can go to your next, if you want to start with your next memory. Maybe the next day or—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, the next memory was of May 4^th. So, that’s going to take a little more time to tell. I don’t remember how I found out about the rally by SDS, but I did. The administration had asked nobody to attend it. So, I decided to go, and it was held on the Commons over by Taylor Hall, closer to Taylor Hall. The National Guard had set up their headquarters in the Commons, and all I recall was there was some kind of a platform, and some people were talking. They were giving a speech and I don’t even remember how many people were there. I think it would be dozens, I’m sure. There was a point where the National Guard came over to break it up. They said, ‘You’re not authorized to do this.’ And there was some verbal altercation then about having our free speech and all that. The National Guard said, ‘You need to disperse.’ And they just kept saying that. And then, it got a little bit ugly and they kind of herded us, if I’m recalling correctly. They kind of herded us and we went in the bottom door of Taylor Hall on the hill side and as there were a bunch of students that ran through Taylor Hall, and they followed us and threw tear gas in there.

 

[Interviewer]: Inside Taylor Hall?  

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yes, yes. It was, I mean I can remember the air being all smoky and everybody was coughing and choking, and your eyes were burning and running, and we were just kind of running through and what happened was we ran up the stairs from the back, and out the front. So, there we were in the front, a bunch of students and I’m sure there were probably some that ran around the side. I really don’t recall. And the National Guard came around the side of the building and that’s when some of the students were getting nasty. They were calling names and some of them were throwing stones and the National Guard was way, way out front in this little area out front. I was hanging back more toward the building but watching what was happening. And there were students like on the roofs of dorms and some students were just ignoring it. They were just walking through and going to class and like the heck with it. So, it wasn’t like a huge, big deal. Then, after the stone throwing and name calling, it seemed like it simmered down. And the National Guard just kind of turned and started marching like they were going to go back down the hill. Everybody figured, ‘Oh, it’s over. They’re going back down the hill.’ And that’s when they turned and shot out of the blue.

 

I was with a couple of friends at the time and my one friend pulled me back behind a pillar on Taylor Hall. It was one of the ones, not the one closest to the Guard, but the next one. If he hadn’t done that, I may not be talking to you today because I was closer to the National Guard than the students who were shot. I mean he had the smarts to know that that was a rifle going off. I had no clue. It was just total shock. I mean, nobody expected that. There was nothing that was happening at the time like that brief altercation out front. They just turned and shot out of the blue.  

 

[Interviewer]: Did you hear anything while they were turning or before they turned?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, you mean as far as like an order or something?

 

[Interviewer]: Order or like it had quieted down in terms of the protestors shouting.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, it had quieted down as far as I recall. It had quieted down. I didn’t hear any order to shoot or anything, it was just totally out of the blue, totally. Nobody expected that. It looked like it was over. It looked like they were going back down the hill.

 

Then, of course, students were circling up and people were screaming, and ambulances came, and it was just unbelievable. We, nobody could believe it, it was surreal.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank goodness for that pillar.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, yeah. And then after the students were taken away, I remember everyone just, that had witnessed it, I don’t know about everyone, but I and a bunch of other students were just standing there like just dumbstruck. And we went back behind Taylor Hall, overlooking the Commons and we just sat on that hill. And people were crying, and I think I probably was too, and I can remember being more angry than I’ve ever felt in my life.

 

I looked down, you could look down on the headquarters of the National Guard and I remember there was one National Guardsman, he was kind of fat, and he was laughing. He was laughing and I wanted to kill him. I was so, so angry. I’ll never forget that.

 

But, as you probably are aware, they closed the campus that very day. So, we had to, everyone had to leave pretty much right away, and I had a car on campus, so I took three other students with me and the line out of Kent was humungous. I mean, it was just the biggest traffic jam you could possibly imagine because the whole campus was leaving. I went up Route 43, and sat and sat and sat. And then, I ended up delivering these other students to wherever I had to bring them. I don’t recall what time I got home, but my mother was, oh my gosh, she was absolutely distraught because she’d heard the news, they had not released the names of the students, and she knew I was into stuff like this. So, she was like practically kissing my feet to see that I was alive and okay.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, my gosh because you hadn’t been able to call her.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, there were no cell phones. There was nowhere to stop to use a pay phone. There was just no way to call anybody. It was gather what you need and get out of here. So, yeah. Oh, my poor mother, yeah. She still talks about that today. She’s still alive. She’s almost ninety-seven and she still talks about that, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, good for her. I mean, yeah.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, yeah. So, the rest of the—

 

[Interviewer]: Did you see any hitchhikers as you were leaving town?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I don’t recall one way or another. I don’t. I know I wouldn’t have had room because I had three other students with all their stuff crammed into my car. But, yeah, don’t remember. Don’t want to say I did or didn’t.

 

But then, everything was correspondence courses for the rest of the term, and I wrote a letter to the university. My mother suggested I do that, she said, ‘While it’s fresh in your mind, why don’t you write down what you saw and send it to them?’ And I did and there were no Xerox machines or anything like that back in that day, so it went off and I don’t know if it’s part of the annals or what, but I was asked to testify in 1974, in October of 1974, when the hearings came up, but I was due to deliver my second child at the time, so I had to back off, and I so regret not being able to be part of that, I really do. 

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, boy, yeah.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Really, but let me tell you the rest of the story if you don’t mind.

 

[Interviewer]: No, take all the time you need, absolutely.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Okay. So, when I got back to Fairview Park, I was pretty much a hometown celebrity because I was an eyewitness. So, I was asked to speak at a number of places in the area and did so. One of the places I was asked to speak was my brother’s high school, which was a Catholic boy’s high school, Saint Ignatius High School in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio, and one of his teachers invited me to come and speak to his classes, so I did. I diagrammed stuff on the board, and fielded some questions and all that. Afterward, this guy, he was a Jesuit seminarian, took me out for lunch as a thank you, which was great, and we walked down to Lake Erie and talked a little bit and that was that, I thought.

 

Well, a week or two later, he called me on the phone, and he invited me to attend a retreat for college-age women at a local retreat center. Well, like I told you, my life was pretty messed up and that was about the last place that I felt that I’d want to be going, and I would feel just like a hypocrite going around a bunch of goodie two-shoes women that had their lives together when I was out in left field, so I said no. Well, he called me back, I don’t remember how long after that, and he said, ‘You know Lynn, I see that something’s just not right with you.’ And he says, ‘I just wanted to call and encourage you to consider doing this.’ And he said the words that made all the difference. He said, ‘What do you have to lose?’ And I thought, ‘Well, he’s right. What do I have to lose?’ So, I did go. And the way the retreat was structured was you went for a weekend and then of all these gals and myself were working at jobs, our summer jobs, so we came back to the retreat house in the evenings and then had the following weekend, was also included in the retreat, and that was the end of it.

 

So, I go. I didn’t know anybody. There were twelve college-age women and what really struck me was how I really felt out of place. These gals were all talking about a’ relationship with Jesus,’ and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my word!’ But the thing about them was, they all seemed to have a sense of peace and a sense of joy, and I know I didn’t have anything like that. But, we were all assigned to a Jesuit seminarian as our counselor or whatever, our mentor, during the whole time there. And I was assigned to a guy by the name of Bob, his name is Bob Padberg, a good-looking guy. It was too bad he was a Jesuit seminarian!

 

So, there I was at this retreat center, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, okay, what do I got to lose? I’m going to spill my guts to him and I’m going to tell him what my life has been like and just share. Why not?’ So, I did. So, we walked out behind this retreat house, and I told him everything and he said to me, ‘You know Lynn, two thousand years ago, Jesus died on a cross, and at that time, He knew everything you have ever done. He knew what you’d be involved in today, and He knows everything you’re ever gonna do in your future. And he took it all at the cross and he forgave you.’ He said, ‘Your problem is that you are not forgiving yourself.’ And that hit me like a ton of bricks. So, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, that makes sense.’ So, I went to this dusty, little old chapel, which was not even in use, and I walked around it on the inside, and I did something very, very bold. I challenged God, because at that point, I didn’t even know if there was a God. I didn’t know if He was real, I didn’t know if Jesus was real. I didn’t know, all I knew was I was a mess. I thought, ‘Why not?’ So, I said, ‘Okay, if you’re for real, and if there is such a thing as a relationship with you, prove it to me.’ Oh, dear.

 

So, after that little walk around this chapel, I went to lunch and then I had to meet back again with Bob, and we met inside in the library. We’re sitting there, and I don’t even remember what we were talking about at the time, but all of a sudden, it’s like, He showed up. I mean, it was like, I knew that the presence of Jesus was in that room and this presence poured over me, poured over me. I could feel Him physically, it was like a lightning bolt of love. He was cleaning me out and making me new and I knew I was forgiven, and I knew I was different. From that moment on, I understood what that peace was all about and the joy, and my life, as of that moment, radically changed, radically changed. The rest is history, I mean, that was the turning point of my life. It truly was the turning point even to this day. To the point that I have pursued God. I wanted to know this Being that did that, that saved me from what I was and changed me into something different.

 

Years later, many years later and I’ll just fast-forward through this because I’ve done so many things. I’ve been on short-term mission trips to Bulgaria, I do prison ministry, et cetera, and I went to Bible college. So, I now have a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in theology and I’m ordained. I’ve shared my story in prisons and jails and with anybody who will listen. But it was just dramatic. So, God used a terrible occurrence to bring about good in me, which is something that the Bible says. ‘All things work together for good,’ and, ‘What the enemy intended for evil, God uses for good.’ That one’s in Genesis. So, that was just very life changing to me. So, that’s, yeah, so that’s the story there. Any questions on that?

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, your first connection with that chain of events was being invited to talk about what happened at Kent State at Saint Ignatius?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Exactly. Right. Which led to the invitation to this retreat, so had I not been an eyewitness to the Kent shootings, I never would have been invited on that retreat.

 

[Interviewer]: When you said you poured out your heart to this Jesuit at the retreat, was telling him the story about what happened at Kent State part of that? Where you kind of letting go of that time that you had experienced?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, no it was more personal. It was all personal, yeah. I was entrenched in a lifestyle that I looked down upon myself for, for a long time and just did not seem to be able to extricate myself and I had tried to. I had tried to, and it just didn’t work.

 

Boy, I’ll tell you, it was like instant freedom and deliverance when this event happened in that library. Yeah, it was like freedom. It was freedom and it was joy and when I got off the retreat, I started to read the Bible. I’d never been able to read the Bible, it didn’t make that much sense to me and all of a sudden, these words are leaping from the page. I started going back to church not only on Sunday, but I peddled my little bicycle up to the Catholic church that we were attending. They had an early morning mass and I went every day. I couldn’t get enough. I’d hear songs on the radio and I’d read God into these songs and I was sharing with anybody who would listen.

 

And then, also, I had a roommate at Kent, her name is Mirta, and we had been pretty much at odds for a couple of years. I lived with her for three years and she knew things weren’t right with me. She knew that.

 

[Interviewer]: Your struggles.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, she didn’t know with what because I didn’t talk about it, but I called up Mirta and asked if we could get together. She lived in Cleveland, and we got together, and I shared with her what happened and she said, ‘You know what Lynn, I have been praying for you for years. I just never thought I’d see it happen.’ Which was phenomenal to me. Then, when we went back for our senior year, we lived in an apartment, Glenn Morris Apartments, I don’t know if they’re still there or not, but—

 

[Interviewer]: I believe so.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Okay, well anyway, we lived in Glenn Morris, and we actually had a weekly like little prayer meeting, Bible study group gathering of people, in our apartment bedroom. So, it really repaired that relationship dramatically. We were like so, so on the same page. It was just wonderful, just wonderful.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:33:14] Do you have any memories from that senior year? What it was like to come back to campus after everything that had happened? What was the mood like?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, I know that a lot of students had not come back, and enrollment was down, but I don’t remember specifics. The main memory I have is at that point in time, I was planning my wedding so, I was only there like half the time. I arranged my schedule so I was able to take very long weekends every weekend, so that was kind of my focus rather than what happened.

 

I don’t even remember going back to the site of the shootings. I did that years later, in fact, not that many years ago, because you can’t witness something like that and not have it just really change you and impact you. I went with a group of ladies and we went to, I guess it was in the library or somewhere the new library? It was new to us, anyway, and they had like a culinary school or something and we had a dinner there. It was lovely and I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to go over there and just make my peace with that place.’ It was a beautiful spring day and I remember there were kids out playing with frisbees and on the lawns and everything, and as I’m getting closer to Taylor Hall, I just couldn’t do it. I started sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and I turned around and walked back. I could not go there. I could not do it. So, about four years ago, my husband and I and a couple of friends went to some kind of a festival at Kent, it wasn’t on the campus, it was outside, it was in the town, and I said, ‘Can we go on the campus?’ So, we did, and I thought, ‘I’m going to do it.’ I did. I walked up to that pillar, and I put my back against it, and just cried, just sobbed. I felt like it was cathartic. It was like the release of everything. It took me a long time to get to that point, it really did.  

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, that was over forty years probably, yeah, before you could—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, yeah. It was probably at least forty-five years. It wasn’t more than four or five years ago that that happened. So, that’s about it except for what happened here, I alluded to. Anyways, so I’m down here in the Villages and everything’s shut down and I was wondering if the newspaper was going to carry any kind of an article about the Kent shootings, and the person I called was sick and she didn’t get back to me in time, and she had listened to what I had to say and she says, ‘Well, I don’t know if we’ll be able to do anything or not.’ And it’s like, okay. A couple days after that—

 

[Interviewer]: And let me just interject for the listeners that you are living part of the year in Florida and—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yes, in The Villages, Florida.

 

[Interviewer]: —and this is a local newspaper where you live.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yes, it is, yes, it’s a local daily newspaper. It’s called The Villages Daily Sun, and so anyway, this young woman that I’ve never met called me and asked if I’d be willing to talk to her about it. So, we kind of had a little phone interview, not as extensive as what I’m having with you, but she wrote an article, and it had some pictures of Kent at the time in it and it was a very nice article, and I also told her about how that was the catalyst for my personal encounter with God that changed my life. It was nicely written and the day after it was published, I got a phone call, and I almost didn’t answer the phone. I rarely answer the phone when I don’t know the number, but it was a woman who said to me, ‘I was at Kent at the time too.’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, okay. Well, yeah there were 20,000 people at Kent at the time’, but she was right here in the Villages, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s really cool. I’m glad she reached out.’ And she didn’t actually witness the shootings, she left before that thinking things had been resolved. But then, she told me where she lived, and it was where my best friends lived. She told me where she lived freshman year, and it’s like one of those friends of mine lived there. So, I asked her if she knew these two gals and she said, ‘Yeah, they were my roommates.’ And I said, ‘And your name is Sandy? Sandy, I know you! I hung with you!’ So, it was like what are the chances of this being somebody I knew? So, we got together a few days later, which was last, I don’t know, I think maybe last Thursday or so? And we spent three hours together. She has all kinds of memorabilia, she had pictures that she and I were both in, our mothers were in, these other two friends were in, and it was just golden. It was like fifty years later, we reconnected and after three hours of talking, we probably could have kept going.

 

It was really amazing, just walking down memory lane and talking about the shooting experience and then talking about these other friends and where they are and what they’re doing. It’s like, what are the chances? So, I called this reporter back and told her about this encounter and she may be publishing a little story about the two of us.

 

[Interviewer]: That would be really nice. That would be great.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, yeah. It would be, it would be.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. You had your own unique class reunion.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Exactly, exactly. And I’m just blown away. It’s like the chance of knowing a person from back then are miniscule, and to have known her well and hung out with her and oh, my gosh, just crazy.

 

[Interviewer]: And you’re now living in the same community out of some other state.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, in fact, my husband and I are going to go golfing tomorrow evening with her and her husband. Our husbands will meet for the first time and all that, so pretty fun. So, that’s my story.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story. Incredible. Was your, you mentioned you were getting ready to get married your senior year when you were finishing at Kent State. Was your husband a student, a Kent State student as well?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, he was not. He was not. He was from back in the Cleveland area.

 

[Interviewer]: So, that day just maybe five years ago that you went to campus with him, was that his—

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, actually, no. That, actually, we divorced, and I’m remarried, so.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh, I’m sorry.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: That’s okay, yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Wow. What a compelling story about your visit to Taylor Hall so many years later.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, it really, it was really difficult, more than I would’ve thought, truly it was.

 

[Interviewer]: Do you think during your senior year you were maybe avoiding going near that part of campus? Or it just worked where your classes were that you didn’t need to go there?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: I can’t say that I recall one way or another, Kate. I think my focus was all on my fiancé and this upcoming wedding, so I kind of shelved all that. So, I don’t really have a clear recollection of what my thoughts were about the shootings.

 

[Interviewer]: Did your, another thing I wondered about, was your mother concerned about you coming back to Kent State in the fall? Was that a discussion?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, it really wasn’t. No, they were fine with that, they were fine with that.

 

[Interviewer]: And you were so close to finishing, I mean, yeah.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, yeah. Yeah, there really wasn’t any question that I finished there. Although, I was supposed to live in a different place and I remember when all of this happened, and I’m just thinking about this now, there was a house, oh gosh, Water Street? Is there a Water Street? It was over there, and it was a really a wreck of a house, it really was, but it was going to be cheap and I was going to be actually with these gals that I’d reconnected with but after the Kent State shootings, something happened and that fell apart, so I ended up living over in the apartments, Glenn Morris Apartments, instead. Which ended up to be a real blessing. 

 

[Interviewer]: That’s good. You mentioned that you felt like there weren’t as many students when you came back in the fall. Were there specific students that you knew that hadn’t come back?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: No, not that I recall. I think it was more incoming students. Students who had planned to come to Kent, maybe went elsewhere. I know that the enrollment was down. Like I said, my head wasn’t there. I was aware of that, but it was just not on my radar screen at the time.

 

[Interviewer]: You had senioritis, I think.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, big time. I was planning a wedding too, so, yeah, I got actually got married the Saturday after graduation and I didn’t even attend my graduation ceremony because I had a wedding, so.

 

[Interviewer]: Right, you had other things.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: I guess at this point I don’t have any other questions that I’m curious about. [00:44:07] I would just ask is there anything else you wanted to mention or talk about that we haven’t touched on before we close?

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Boy, I think I’ve given you a pretty thorough accounting of everything. So, unless you have any questions for me, I can’t think of anything else to add. That’ll happen after we hang up, I’m sure!

 

[Interviewer]: It always does. So, well, then we’ll just close here and I just want to thank you again, Lynn, for so generously sharing your memories and your experiences with us.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Oh, you are so welcome, Kate. You are so welcome. I am so glad to be able to do this because anything like this is just formative. It was traumatic, it changes people no matter whether for good or for bad, but it’s just a trauma that is something you carry with you all of your life. It really is.

 

[Interviewer]: Absolutely. And especially when you think about what age you were when these events took place. You were very young.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Right, exactly. Yeah, that pretty innocent one. Yeah, absolutely.

 

[Interviewer]: Thank you again very much.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Well, you’re welcome, Kate.

 

[Interviewer]: Thanks.

 

[Lynn Laugel Savron]: Okay, thank you.

[End of interview] 

                                                                                                      

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