Forty years ago Friday, Southern Illinoisans were saddened to hear that Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had died from an assassin's bullet.

Sirhan Sirhan, the killer, struck on June 5, 1968, as Kennedy, 42, was in a hotel in Los Angeles, jubilant after winning the California presidential primary. After a victory rally at the hotel, Kennedy was taking a shortcut through the kitchen to meet with newsmen. Sirhan appeared and fired eight times. Three bullets hit Kennedy, one causing irreparable brain damage. Five people who were near him were wounded. And Bobby Kennedy died early the next morning after surgery.

Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier, a Los Angeles Rams tackle and Kennedy's friend and bodyguard, grabbed the gunman, took away his weapon and held him for police.

Three of Kennedy's 10 children and his pregnant wife, Ethel, were in an adjacent room and saw him lying mortally wounded. So did the nation, as the scene played over and over on TV.

The footage recalled the assassination earlier that year of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.

Memorial services were held in several area churches. In Carbondale, a memorial Mass was held in St. Francis Xavier Church, sponsored by the Carbondale Ministerial Alliance, which invited all denominations to attend. Carbondale declared a day of mourning for Kennedy to coincide with a national day of mourning proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

For Jim Kirkpatrick of Elkville, who had just graduated the week before from Elverado High School, Bobby Kennedy's death "was one of the great American tragedies. I consider him my political hero. He went on the road campaigning with Cesar Chavez, Rosey Grier, Rafer Johnson. I believe he sincerely wanted to make a difference. He's the person who really got me interested in politics."

Kirkpatrick recalls trying unsuccessfully to convince his parents to make a trip from their home in Elkville to New Harmony, Ind., where Kennedy was campaigning earlier in 1968. He never got the chance to see his hero in person. "I have been to his grave, though, in Arlington National Cemetery," Kirkpatrick said.

When he entered Southern Illinois University later in 1968, Kirkpatrick attended a convocation at which Rosey Grier spoke. "It was very emotional" to hear Kennedy's friend, he said.

Kirkpatrick now lives in Creal Springs and is the district manager for state Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion. He also has served on the staffs of Congressmen Ken Gray, Glenn Poshard and David Phelps. It was Bobby Kennedy, he said, who convinced him that politicians really could make a difference in people's lives.

John S. Holmes of Carbondale was a graduate student at SIUC in 1968, living on East Oak Street and active in trying to better the lives of residents.

"I vividly remember the TV footage following Bobby's assassination," Holmes said. "I do not remember anyone's reaction matching the grief and outrage that Dr. King's murder brought about. My own reaction was deep sadness, that another champion of human rights had been silenced."

Both Holmes and Kirkpatrick believe Bobby Kennedy would have won the nomination and defeated Richard Nixon.

"There is no question in my mind he would have been elected president," Kirkpatrick said. "People believed in him."

"I agree that Bobby Kennedy would probably have easily beaten Nixon in the general election," Holmes said. "He had so much charisma, and inspired hope among both young and older citizens."

Greg Manering of Carbondale was still in high school in 1968 and paid little attention then to politics. A few years later, though, he realized Kennedy's death was "an altering event" in American history, he said.

"Nixon was elected and it's been a disaster ever since," he said. Manering was at a National Guard camp in Wisconsin when it was announced that Nixon had resigned. Cheers erupted all over the camp, Manering recalled. He, too, is convinced Bobby Kennedy could have won the presidency had he lived.

On the wall of his Marion office, Kirkpatrick has a poster of John F. and Robert Kennedy. "I look at it every day," he said. "Bobby Kennedy is the person I truly admire."

Barb Brown of Chester, Randolph County clerk, who soon will be heading for the Democratic National Convention in Denver, said she is intrigued by the "what if …" scenarios painted by those who believe Kennedy would have won the presidency in 1968, and suggesting that if he had been the nominee, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago would not have turned sour and ended in bloody attacks by police against protesters.

Holmes, though, believes Kennedy's presence "could not have prevented Mayor (Richard J.) Daley's assault on the demonstrators. I think it was a case of showing dissidents exactly who was in charge."

Holmes said, "I was in Chicago when the police riot took place." He had traveled there with then-Carbondale Mayor David Keene to meet with federal officials about Carbondale's development. They took the Illinois Central train.

"We got off at the 12th Street station and walked from there to the Loop," Holmes recalled. "Mayor Keene was keen on exercise," he said. "We walked past the park and hotel where the convention was being held" and went on to the meeting. Afterward, they walked back past the park and hotel "and noticed several people who were bloody and/or bandaged. We had no clue as to what had happened until we were back in Carbondale and watching the news. We could have been caught up in the riot if our timing had been different."

Makanda artist Dave Dardis, a student in 1968, said he and his friends watched footage of the King and Kennedy assassinations and found themselves "wondering what else is next," wondering what would happen if the violence hit their own community.

Jack W. Graham was dean of Student Affairs at SIUC during that time and said he recognized the stress on campus. "In terms of my own role, we were trying hard to at least listen to the students and provide an outlet for their concerns," he said. "Student government leaders were concerned with national events, but also with issues on campus." He said student leaders presented him with a pen and pencil set, acknowledging his efforts to work with them on issues. Both Graham and Loretta Ott Ledbetter, who also worked with organizations on campus, said they felt the assassinations and violence elsewhere in the nation contributed to increasing frustrations on the SIUC campus, which boiled over in the following years as the Vietnam War intensified and protesters were shot on the Kent State University campus.

On June 8, 1969, Old Main, a campus landmark, was destroyed in a fire that was declared an arson - a case that has never been solved. As the building burned, hundreds of students pitched in to save books, records, theses from the flames.

By 1970, protests against the war escalated; crowds of students surrounded some buildings. Ledbetter recalled faculty members being blocked inside their offices when halls filled with students.

Ledbetter's late husband, Carlyle Ott, was among faculty who took turns standing watch in buildings overnight, guarding against more destruction. Finally, the campus was shut down early.

Dave Dardis began shooting footage of the demonstrations and violence; he later edited it into a film whose acronym title stands for "State High In Troubled Times." The film is now in Morris Library special collections and recently was shown.

State police and National Guard troops, including Greg Manering, his long hair concealed by a short-hair wig to meet soldierly standards, patrolled the troubled streets of Carbondale.

linda.rush@thesouthern.com / 351-5079