Reporter’s Notebook: Amy Slanchik shares David Boren and JFK's connection in 2013 interview

People are remembering the life and legacy of former Oklahoma Governor, U.S. Senator, and University of Oklahoma President David Boren.

Boren died at home surrounded by family early Thursday morning at the age of 83.

News On 6's own Amy Slanchik interviewed him 11 years ago when she was a student at OU, about Boren's connection to John F. Kennedy.

Jonathan Cooper: How did this interview come about for you, and tell us more about Boren and JFK?

Amy Slanchik: It was 2013, and the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, so I was looking for Oklahoma connections to do stories on. I learned that Boren, who went to high school in Bethesda, just outside of D.C., was able to help secure then-Senator JFK as his graduation commencement speaker.

Here's what he told me about how he made it happen.

"It was really incredible for a high school commencement. Because our baccalaureate speaker was the poet Robert Frost, who I also met in Washington, just by chance, taking walks on Saturday afternoons. I used to go take walks with him. And he agreed to come. And then we had some mutual friends who would get the invitation to Senator Kennedy and he agreed to come,” Boren said.

Boren said he was the editor of his high school paper at the time and says they printed a special edition to announce the senator would be speaking at graduation

Jonathan: Fast forward to 1963, what did Boren tell you about where he was when JFK was killed?

Amy: He was away from home in London at the time. Boren was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the fall of 1963. He told me he was rowing on the river because he was on the rowing team then, and as he walked back to his room, he noticed a big crowd on the street. Here's how he remembered that moment in history:

“I was just walking down the street and all of a sudden, I saw this really big crowd because they had the television sets in the window of the appliance shop. And they had them all turned out toward the street, and they were announcing the assassination of President Kennedy and the death of President Kennedy. And all these, mainly British people, were gathered around the storefront and they started weeping. And they really took his death, and I saw that wherever I traveled around the world. The fact that - he just touched the world, the Peace Corps. So many things that happened."

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