Notable People, Lost Tales, and Forgotten Facts of Oil City, Louisiana: 22-Nov-1963

A little over a year and a half ago some of us were reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and where we were when we heard the terrible news. Some time after lunch period on 22-Nov-1963, seventh grade teacher Mr. Sid Dean came into the gym - first telling us the President had been shot, and returning shortly to inform us he had died. The remainder of the afternoon our sixth grade class crowded in with his group around a black and white portable television to watch history unfold. What we didn't know was that there was a local connection to the events taking place.

1952 Oil City High School Bengal (yearbook)

Following in the motorcade several cars behind the President was a group of newspersons, including NBC-affiliate WBAP-TV newsman Jimmy Darnell (1934-2017), a 1952 Oil City High graduate. A military veteran who attended North Texas State University, Jimmy and the others sprang into action upon realizing what had transpired. He filmed several scenes of the pandemonium around Dealey Plaza in the aftermath of the shooting used by the national network for the nightly news.

Shown as a member of the college
newspaper staff

Source: 1961 North Texas State University Yucca (yearbook), Page 117

His work has been poured over by government authorities, historians, investigators, and conspiracy theorists; all attempting to piece together the event and/or find some new bit of information. He also conducted interviews of witnesses at the scene and later traveled to Love Field where he took additional footage including that of President Kennedy's casket being loaded on Air Force One, which the police confiscated and has never been seen.

Jimmy Darnell (back to camera) and Bob Jackson riding in
Presidential motorcade. Jackson later took the iconic photo of
Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby.

Source: Beal, Bill. [Local press photographers in press car during motorcade on Main Street], Photograph, November 22, 1963; University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.

Source: Nellie Darnell Jackson (daughter)

Here is brief footage taken by Jimmy that day.

Jimmy worked at that station during a 40-year career and continued to cover major events of the day; notably the 1976 Republican Convention and the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, but none as historic as that day.