Chesapeake students researching Kennedy assassination

It should be a required course in every college with information and evidence on both sides of the debate presented for study.

Chesapeake students researching Kennedy assassination
DAVID E. MALLOY
The Herald-Dispatch
Huntington, WVA
February 02, 2012 @ 12:00 AM

PHOTO courtesy of Ashlee Miller
Students in Colleen Sexton’s college prep English class at Chesapeake High School present some of their findings in a project that has them asking and searching for answers to the question, “Who killed JFK?”

CHESAPEAKE, Ohio — The question of who killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963 is still worth debating some five decades later as far as Colleen Sexton is concerned.

Sexton, a Chesapeake High School English teacher, assigned 25 college prep English students to read a book about the assassination, research the question on the Internet, and then debate the issue before a jury comprised of high school juniors.

“It’s part of a year-long study of modern history from the 1930s to the 1970s,” Sexton said Tuesday. “We get them reading a book, ‘Plausible Denial,’ then asked them to use all different types of media to research the issue and then make a presentation. They learn to work as a team. It’s also part of a team teaching project with Tyler Marcum, a history teacher, and Chris Smith, the assistant principal.”

“I do believe (Lee Harvey) Oswald acted along, being the only shooter,” said Ashlee Miller, a Chesapeake senior. She worked with the group that argued the Lone Gunman Theory. “I just haven’t seen enough evidence to convince me someone was on the Grassy Knoll. However, I do think Oswald had connections with others including the CIA.”

Miller researched what the Warren Commission had to say about the shooting.

“What I gained from this experience is a whole new perspective on how anyone, be it a random person off the street or people with high status including the CIA or FBI would do anything to get rid of someone, even if it was the most powerful man in the world,” Miller said.

Benji Koletka, a Chesapeake senior, made the argument that while Oswald shot the President, he also thinks there was another person on the grassy knoll that day in Dallas.

“Fifty-one witnesses say the saw someone on the Grassy Knoll,” he said. Eighteen of those witnesses died of suspicious circumstances following the shooting, he said.

Heath Fields, a Chesapeake senior, said they used information from three films and a National Geographic television show in their presentation. While his group believes Oswald fired the fatal shot, “we all believe there was a conspiracy.”

The debate will continue at Chesapeake High School this week, Sexton said.