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Scouts awed by ’69 event
The Youngstown Eagle Scouts were struck by the significance of the Nixon inauguration.
YOUNGSTOWN — With the historic inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama just a day away, members of a Youngstown Eagle Scouts group remember — “as if it were yesterday,” their brush with history at the inauguration of President Richard Milhous Nixon.
It was Jan. 20, 1969, and they were part of the cadre of youths who opened limo and hotel doors, checked identifications and event tickets of the famous and powerful and ushered them to their seats.
They got autographs, took pictures, were frightened by Vietnam War protesters and awed by the glitz and glamour, the immenseness and historical significance of the event.
“I was impressed. I thought at the time, here I am, a 17-year-old, who gets to stand next to the most powerful man in the world,” said William Slosser Jr., then of Poland.
While he didn’t get to meet Nixon, he did manage a few words with Nixon’s daughter, Julie Nixon (later, Eisenhower), who was unmarried and just out of her teens then, before the Secret Service swooped in and ended the conversation.
“She said she was tired,” remembered Slosser, now of Summerville, S.C., who was a senior at Poland Seminary High School.
“I remember all the Secret Service agents ... you could see they were all well-heeled,” said Slosser, who graduated from Youngstown State University with a degree in human resources and operations management. Married to the former Lisa Ballas of Boardman, he is operations manager for Global Building Solutions in Charleston.
“Just the sheer size of the event — concerts and balls and the parade — the magnitude of the thing. It was an incredible experience for a high school kid. The whole thing was totally impressive,” said Jeffrey Showman, then of Lowellville and commander of the Youngstown Knights of Dunamis Chapter, a service fraternity of Eagle Scouts.
“It was a festive occasion, not particularly solemn. Washington was having a party. They seem to like to have parties,” said Showman, who lives in Berlin Center with his wife, Shawnee.
Slosser and Showman were among 21 Eagle Scouts, all Dunamis members, who traveled by car to Washington, D.C., to participate in that inauguration of the 37th president of the United States.
They were invited by the Washington Chapter of the Knights of Dunamis, with which the Youngstown group had a two-year association, and stayed in private homes arranged by the D.C. chapter.
Others on that eventful trip were John S. Nock Jr. of Youngstown, whose father, John Sr., was scoutmaster of Troop 2 in Poland and an adviser on the Washington trip; Paul “Dennis” Dulovich, then of Campbell, now of Struthers; James Filicky, then of Campbell, now of Hubbard; and Dennis Alexander of Youngstown, then and now.
While he was opening limo doors and taking tickets at the inaugural parade, Nock managed to get George Romney’s autograph. “I stuck my program in his face when I opened the limo door to let him out,” said Nock, a junior at Poland at the time.
While he was stationed on Pennsylvania Avenue checking tickets for members of Congress and the Supreme Court and other dignitaries, Showman was able see a lot of people up close, such as then-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and future President Ronald Reagan.
“We saw Nixon all day but did not get to meet him,” said Showman, a 1969 graduate of North High School and a 1981 graduate of Youngstown State University, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts. He retired in 2005 from the YSU maintenance department.
Occasionally, some of the Scouts got off the beaten path.
One of Nock’s most vivid memories happened during the inaugural parade, when he and Slosser were one street over from the parade route where an anti-Vietnam War demonstration was occurring. The police were shooting tear gas at the protesters, who were throwing things.
“We were scared. We had our uniforms on and our red Scout jackets. We had snuck out to get something to eat, nd it was cold, and we wanted to warm up in a store front. The protesters turned the corner as we were coming out of the store. We ran, and the police helped us climb over a fence to get back where we belonged,” Nock said.
Nock, a property inspector for a decade and with Prudential Insurance for about 10 years before that, graduated from Poland in 1970 and attended Mesa (Ariz.) Community College. He and his wife, the former Deborah Stanko of Struthers, have three children and three grandchildren.
“It was something you always remember. I remember Dad telling us that he boosted a security agent by cupping his hands so the agent could step in them to see above the crowd. They were looking for somebody,” he said.
“The experience didn’t really make me follow politics more closely, but it made you aware of the man running for president ... that they are regular guys like you and me,” Slosser said. “It was an eye-opener, just to be part of history.
“It’s a wonderful experience that has stayed with me all my life,” he said.
“It’s been 40 years, but it’s still very clear in my mind,” said Paul (Dennis) Dulovich of Struthers, and formerly of Campbell, where he was a member of Scout Troop 92. “The experience was amazing overall. The people we met and things we participated in were unbelievable.
“I knew there was stuff going on about the war — I think most of us were more shocked by the war protesters when we saw them — like out of nowhere, they appeared,” he said.
“It’s an experience you won’t forget — once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — to be part of history, experience you can just never forget. To be 40 years later and still be so clear in your mind is unbelievable,” said Dulovich, who served four years in the Navy.
He graduated in 1968 from Campbell Memorial High and works as a mail handler for the U.S. Postal Service in Youngstown.
Filicky, a 1969 graduate of Ursuline High, was a 17-year-old senior when he made the trip. He was a member of Scout Troop 93 at McCartney School.
Now, the YSU campus electrician, Filicky worked at U.S. Steel’s Ohio Works for a while and went to Texas when the mill shut down. But he and his wife, the former Margaret Werner, got homesick and came back to Ohio in 1981. The couple has four children.
“I’ll tell you what, for a small-town guy from Campbell, except for my marriage and the birth of our children, it was the experience of a lifetime,” Filicky said.
“I tell my kids about it every four years. They get tired of hearing about it. But it’s something to be proud of. We were there in the middle of things,” he said.
Alexander, who was a member of Boy Scout Troop 36 at John Knox Church, also found himself in the middle of the anti-war demonstration. After they were finished seating people in the reviewing stand across from the White House, he said he and a friend went in search of a restroom.
“It really stands out in my mind, because the demonstrators started throwing stuff, and we ran into a restroom for cover. A counter-inaugural, it was called,” he said.
“What stands out most in my mind is the way the police broke up the demonstration. A police car just plowed right through the crowd, knocking people down, said Alexander, who is a 1968 graduate of Chaney High School and graduated in 1978 from YSU with a degree in business administration. He is purchasing agent at L.B. Foster in Mineral Ridge, a rail fabricator.
On the plus side, an assignment that he was “kind of bummed out about” turned out to be very exciting.
He was assigned to the rear door of Constitution Hall for the inaugural ball. As it turned out, it was a decoy, and the president and his family came through that door.
“I accidently bumped into Tricia Nixon. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ and she smiled.”
Alexander said he tried to take a picture of Nixon, but a Secret Service agent put his hand over the camera, saying the president was bothered by flash bulbs.
“I took a good close-up of the back of his head,” Alexander said with a laugh. “I also have a picture of Tricia,” he said.
The whole thing was a very memorable experience,” he said.
alcorn@vindy.com