After 49 years, I thought I had read or heard absolutely everything there was to know about May 4, 1970.

Nope.

In talking with Akron's most famous artist, Don Drumm, I learned something new: An experiment he was part of in the aftermath of the shootings, arranged by the Beacon Journal, provided crucial information about what really happened that day.

Drumm, as you may know, was the creator of the 15-foot-high metal sculpture next to Kent State's Taylor Hall that was pierced by a bullet on the day the Ohio National Guard killed four students and wounded nine others.

Created in 1967 and named “Solar Totem #1,” the work consists of more than 100 panels of a type of steel Drumm had never used before: Cor-Ten, an alloy that weathers into a rusted appearance without actually rusting.

The hole left by the bullet had a jagged edge on the side where the National Guard had been positioned, suggesting to many that it was created by a shot coming from the opposite direction, fired by a student or outside sniper.

According to that theory, the sniper was responsible for unleashing the National Guard's massive barrage of 67 shots into the crowd.

Others weren't so sure. So Beacon Journal photographer Bill Hunter invited Drumm to participate in the experiment.

First, Drumm and Hunter went to a warehouse on Ira Avenue where Drumm usually bought his steel. He found a sheet of Cor-Ten with the same thickness (five-sixteenthsof an inch) as the ones he used in the sculpture.

Hunter's brother-in-law, Frankie Hagenbush, a pressman at the Beacon, owned a rifle and the same .30-cailber ammunition used by the National Guard.

Three days after the bloodletting, Drumm, Hunter and Hagenbush met reporter Kathy Lilly and State Editor Pat Englehart at a farm in Suffield Township that was owned by a former KSU student.

They stood up the sheet of steel. Drumm marked the front with a felt pen in case the sheet flipped upon impact. Hagenbush took aim and nailed it.

When they inspected the hole, the entry point was jagged and the exit hole was smooth. It looked exactly like the hole at Kent State.

"Drumm was really surprised," Hunter says today. "He said he knew quite a bit about metallurgy and that he didn't expect that result."

The result was the opposite of what happens when Drumm drills a hole in metal. The reason, he learned, is that a bullet fired from a rifle is moving so fast that it compresses and pushes the metal to the side upon impact and leaves a smooth hole upon exiting.

That is relatively well-known today, but it wasn't then. And when the Beacon published the story, it was picked up around the world.

“The government said the students fired at the Guard, but we proved they didn't,” Drumm says. “And the Beacon Journal won a Pulitzer Prize.”

That we did, one of four in the newspaper's history. The Pulitzer board said the Beacon's massive, ongoing coverage of the tragedy was the finest example of local news reporting in the nation that year.

New sculpture

At the time, Drumm was an artist-in-residence at Bowling Green State University. But on May 4, he was working in his recently opened studio on Crouse Street near the University of Akron. A day or two later, he drove to Kent to have a look.

“The sun was out, it was a beautiful day and the only people roaming around were people in black suits — I figured FBI. Anyway, we had permission to go there.

“I stood up where the Guard had been. Light came through that hole almost like a line, and there was a tree on the bank going downhill, and it lined up.”

Drumm walked down to the tree and found a bullet.

“Now, there may have been many [bullets in the area], but it lined up.”

Drumm, now 84, drove back to BG a short time later to give a previously planned presentation. After the talk, a student asked whether he would be willing to create a memorial to May 4 on the BG campus.

He was, and arranged for the student to go with him to speak to the president, who signed off on the project. Today “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a nod to the Simon & Garfunkel classic, still graces the campus.

“It doesn't look the same [as the one at KSU]," Drumm says. "It has some holes cut in it, just by design. It's a non-objective piece.”

Today, the original artistic function of “Solar Totem #1” is still very much intact: As the sun passes through the sky, the shadows on the steel plates constantly change.

Drumm was always adamant that the bullet hole remain. Because he was, his work of art now doubles as a firsthand witness to a grim episode in American history.

Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31