Local display looks at Kennedy assassination

On Nov. 18, a local researcher will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

By April Lawrence

TRENTON – Next week it will be 50 years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and a retired local teacher is marking the anniversary with a display and discussion.

The event happens Monday, Nov. 18, between noon and 8 p.m. in the multi-purpose room of the Quinte West Public Library.

Kennedy researcher Duncan Armstrong, a retired Trenton High School physical-education teacher, has been studying the assassination for 36 years.

But his interest in the late U.S. president began before the assassination.

Armstrong grew up in a military family. “Being on a military base, politics was part of life,” and he was always kept aware of national and international news as a child, he said.

He remembers watching the Kennedy-Nixon debate on television when he was a young child. When Kennedy was subsequently elected president in 1960, “he captured the youth” – not just teenagers and young adults, but seven- and eight-year-olds like himself, he said.

Three years later, on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Tex.

When he heard about the assassination, “it was like my breath was taken away, and all I could think of was nuclear war.”

His research on the assassination began in 1977 when he wrote a paper on it while attending the University of Ottawa. He has continued ever since and has amassed a collection of books and mementos of Kennedy’s life, presidency and assassination.

Armstrong will be on hand at Monday’s event and will share his findings and answer questions about them.

The Quinte West Public Library is at 7 Creswell Dr., Trenton.