Dan Welk, a Des Moines photographer who also anchors the occasional newscast on Radio Iowa, produced a video recording the memories of nearly a dozen Iowans who were alive when President Kennedy was shot 50 years ago. Watch it here.
In the video, former Congressman Neal Smith — who is now 93 years old — said he was in the Montgomery Wards store in downtown Des Moines when someone in the store heard on the radio that Kennedy had been shot. Smith shared that many in the crowd of shoppers who started gathering around him didn’t know the vice president would immediately be sworn in as president.
Welk also interviewed a man who was a principal in southwest Iowa the day Kennedy was shot, a woman who was in the military — she was a sailor, and several others who shared their recollections.
About O.Kay Henderson
Kay is a founding member of the Radio Iowa network newsroom. In 1994, she became the network’s news director. She’s a featured reporter and commentator on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” and the 2002 recipient of the Shelley Award.
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