1-31-2013 meeting of the Rotary Club of Chickasha

The Jan. 31, 2013 meeting of the Rotary Club of Chickasha opened with a prayer, pledge and a song.

Guests included Elizabeth Allen and Kyle Abrams.

Prayer concerns include Bill and Janice McVey.

Mark Tibbetts has tickets for the Friends of the Library Valentine Chocolate Celebration on Feb.13 at the Library. The $6 ticket allows you to get a serving of six chocolate treats.

Dick McCalla updated Rotarians on the Dan Proctor Scholarship process and said if you know of a high school senior make sure he or she knows about the scholarship.

Rotarian of the Day was Jim (Auto) Allen. He introduced Peggy Hadnot as our guest speaker.

Peggy was a witness to the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

She and a friend took a position along the motorcade route near the Texas School Book Depository, a few yards from where the President and Gov. John Connally were shot.

She said JFK's hand flew up to us neck and a few seconds later a second shot "blew out the back" of the president's head. Jackie jumped up and started crawling back into the limo but was shoved back into her seat by a Secret Service Agent who hung on to the car for dear life as it sped off en route to Parkland Hospital.

Meanwhile, Peggy, her infant, and the friend hit the ground.

"We were panicking and we sat down on the ground," she said. It wasn't long before more than 200 police sirens made a deafening noise in the area. 

A policeman approached and told them to stay were they were and he searched the baby blanket, the infant carrier and other items. The film she took on the was confiscated and not returned until sometime later.

Eventually, they were allowed to leave the area.. They had come in two cars but decided to leave the friend's there and retrieve it later. 

It was parked near police headquarters. When they went to get it two days later, as they were leaving, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was suspected in JFK's assassination was killed at the hand of Jack Ruby as Oswald's was being transferred from the police station to county jail.

The women were told to sit in their car and saw the ambulance leave with Oswald's body in it.

You can see Peggy and her friend in videos of both incidents. After some technical issues were resolved, we got to see the videos.

Before we adjourned, Bill McVey reminded Rotarians to help greet freshman students at Chickasha High School every Friday morning at 7:30.

The meeting adjourned after recitation of the Rotary 4-Way test.