Tomorrow it will have been 57 years since President John F. Kennedy’s dedication of Oahe Dam near Pierre.
It was my good fortune to have been picked by Editor Percy Albrook to be the reporter covering that historic occasion for the Watertown Public Opinion.
On that long-ago, sunny day at the Pierre airport and the dam site, I learned about patience, persistence and photo planning, although my Plan A for covering the president’s airport arrival didn’t exactly work out as planned.
On Aug. 17, 1962, I loaded my camera and plenty of rolls of film in the car, filled the tank with 27.9-cent-a-gallon Watertown gas and headed west.
At the Pierre airport I showed my press pass and was escorted to a roped-off pen where I crowded in with dozens of other local photographers and others who had arrived from the nation’s capitol on the press plane ahead of Air Force One and the president.
Those big city photo guys were loaded with gear. Each had a couple of cameras, lenses for regular, wide angle or telephoto shots and powerful flash units.
They wore fancy vests with little pockets everywhere that were filled with photo accoutrements from lens cleaning fluid, flash diffusers and jewelers’ screwdrivers to fix stubborn camera parts, among other things.
And there I was with my banged-up twin-lens Rolleiflex swinging on its frayed old leather strap wrapped around my scrawny, sunburned neck. My shirttail was my lens cleaner. Extra film bulged in my pockets. I had no idea what I’d do with a flash diffuser.
Secret Service agents watched over us in our tiny pen out on the airport apron where the president’s plane would taxi for his departure from the aircraft.
There I learned that the pros pretty much threw common courtesy out the window. They were aggressive, with sharp elbows flailing. It was like being in an anxious crowd waiting for Walmart’s pre-Christmas doors to open at midnight on Black Friday.
I ended up in the back row.
When President Kennedy’s 707 taxied toward us, more scuffles ensued. The churlish shutterbugs jostled and fought for positions.
I gave up hope of an arrival picture and asked one of the unsmiling Secret Service guys if I could be excused from “the pack” if I left the area. He nodded my release.
The other photographers would ride to the dam site in a bus to take them to the allotted press corral out at the dam site.
I headed for my car and hurried to the dam. There, I left my press pass in the car and became a spectator, staking out a spot with a good view of the podium. I took a wild guess as to where the president’s convertible would be parked, and how it would depart from the VIP platform after his speech.
As Kennedy spoke, I jotted down a few notes and took some photographs in case my gamble on his departure route went awry.
The dedicatory program ended. President Kennedy shook hands with a few state officials and left the stage. He and Gov. Archie Gubbrud climbed into the president’s convertible. To my relief, the convertible drove right up to me. I could have reached out and touched the president.
The big city news photo pros with their fancy equipment and sharp elbows were still in their pen some distance away, digging out their longest-reaching telephoto lenses.
As the convertible passed by me, President Kennedy turned to wave to the crowd.
Click!
It was his farewell to South Dakota.
Above is the result of that 57-year-old click.
