For most Butler County residents in 2023, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on this day 60 years ago is an event from a history book or a topic of conversation among older relatives.

But for those who remember that Friday morning, the grim events that played out in Dallas are forever etched into their memories.

“I was devastated,” said Butler Township Commissioner Sam Zurzolo. “He was a young guy. He was smart, and he had a lot going for him. He was a Navy officer.”

Zurzolo recalls Kennedy’s visit to Butler on Oct. 15, 1960, as he campaigned for the presidency.

Kennedy came out the front door of the county courthouse to wave and greet people on the steps. Throngs of people came out to try and catch a glimpse of the Democratic candidate.

“He shook my wife’s hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek,” Zurzolo recalled. “He had a brownish-gray suit on. I can still see him standing there.”

On Nov. 22, 1963, Zurzolo was working for George Schenk, a construction contractor who had a job to do at Armco, now Cleveland-Cliffs.

“We were going into Armco, and a guy driving a tractor-trailer came by and he said, ‘The president was just shot,’” Zurzolo said.

He and Schenk began mingling with others in the area to discuss the grim news.

“He would have been a great president,” Zurzolo said.

Lee Dyer, former Evans City council president, was a young sailor stationed on a ship in Norfolk, Va.

He remembers all personnel being alerted and told to expect additional orders.

Dyer later learned all military personnel were put on alert as soon as Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald.

“My reaction was how can that be?” Dyer said. “It was absolute disbelief.”

All sailors on his ship were dispatched to their alert stations, which meant security on the Navy piers was doubled and no one was permitted on the ship without their identification being approved by an officer.

“For several days, we were in that posture to ensure no bad actor took advantage of that horrible situation,” Dyer said.

He said each ship’s commander held a recognition ceremony of some kind for Kennedy, a Navy hero who saved 10 men during World War II when a Japanese destroyer sank the now-famous PT-109.

“We assembled a full crew on the helicopter deck,” Dyer recalled. “We had lost our commander in chief.”

All sailors stood at attention as a moment of silence for the fallen president and other actions of respect were carried out.

Dyer said his ship had been involved in the blockade around Cuba during the Bay of Pigs incident to ensure no Russian vessel entered the island nation’s waters.

Dyer’s ship provided water to residents of Cuba — as Fidel Castro had shut off water service to the entire island — and picked up civilian family members of American military personnel to bring them home during the tense standoff.

“I think most of us were just dumbfounded,” Dyer said of Kennedy’s assassination.

Mike Waldron, of Butler Township, was serving in the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune when the news hit that Kennedy had been killed.

“We went on standby, and a ship from the Navy was assigned for us in case we had to depart the base,” Waldron said. “They canceled everything because President Kennedy was shot.”

He said everyone was glued to the television for days because of possible Russian involvement in the assassination.

“I thought we were going to be going to war,” Waldron said.

Bill McNutt, commander at American Legion Post 778 in Butler Township, was in health class as a sophomore at Butler High School.

“They told us to go back to our homerooms, that the president was shot and we’re going home,” McNutt said.

When he came through the door at home, his mother was surprised.

“Mom wondered why I was coming home,” McNutt said. “She didn’t have the TV on.”

Although his family, like millions of others in the U.S., remained glued to the television for several days, McNutt’s father continued to go to work at the strip mine he owned in Clarion County.

“Little things like that just stick in your mind,” he said.

Lee McDonald, owner of R.W. McDonald and Sons, was a 16-year-old on the delivery crew at his father’s furniture and appliance company, which was then located just north of the current Clearview Mall.

“At that point in time, television was a big thing for us because color TV was pretty new, so we had a lot of TVs on display,” he said.

When the multiple screens switched to a special report that Kennedy had been shot as his motorcade proceeded through Dealey Plaza, employees and people from the street remained glued to the screens in disbelief.

“It was, of course, a total shock to all of us, needless to say,” McDonald said. “It was almost like the world had just stopped.”

He said the store was open until 9 p.m. back then, and the McDonalds did not close up shop and go home like many other businesses in the wake of the assassination.

“We left the store open and, of course, we let anybody who wanted to see it on TV watch,” McDonald said.

He said the event is burned into his memory.

“It never will leave,” McDonald said. “No one will ever forget it.”

Millie Pinkerton was a young mother of a 2-year-old and living in a second-story apartment in Bellevue with her new husband, Dale.

Her husband, who would later become a Butler County commissioner and philanthropist, was a funeral director at that time and was at work.

“I was ironing and the lady on the first floor is hitting my floor with a broom, yelling “Millie, turn on your TV! The president was shot!’” Pinkerton remembered.

She then switched on her set and got the news.

“It was kind of like 9/11, that feeling,” Pinkerton said. “Kind of like … the end.”

Stan Kosciuszko, former president of the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, was a sixth-grader at St. Vitus School in New Castle.

“The principal came in and said ‘President John F. Kennedy has just been assassinated, and we are all going to the church to pray,’” Kosciuszko said.

The children walked silently across the parking lot to the church associated with the school and filed into its pews.

“We didn’t know he had died yet,” Kosciuszko recalled. “I guess we were praying for a miracle.”

After several prayers, an administrator entered the church and announced that the country’s first Catholic president had died, and the students were dismissed.

“I walked home with some friends, and we were really sad,” Kosciuszko said. “At that age, you become more aware of national politics and things going on.”

He said that when Kennedy was elected, his Catholic parents were ecstatic.

“To find out he had been assassinated, it was terrible. It was almost like a martyrdom,” Kosciuszko said.

He said many had questions after Kennedy was killed.

“Was it because he was a Democrat? Was it because he was Catholic?” Kosciuszko said of the conventional thinking in 1963.

Fred Caesar, volunteer curator at the Saxonburg Museum, was in junior high in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue, Mo.

“Somehow, somebody had heard about it and the word started getting around, and we were all like ‘What’s happening?’” he recalled. “We were told to go to our next class, because the teachers didn’t know much either.”

But a television in the library was broadcasting the news of the shooting, and the library staff began disseminating the information.

“I remember talking to kids and teachers, then buses were called early and we were sent home,” Caesar said.

The Sunday after the shooting, the Caesar family watched in horror as Lee Harvey Oswald was gunned down by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police headquarters.

“That was something else,” Caesar said.

He also recalled watching Kennedy’s funeral proceedings and little John Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s coffin as it went by on a gun carriage.

Caesar later traveled to Washington, D.C., to view the eternal flame.

“That was a quiet, solemn place to be,” he said.

He said everyone was fascinated by the magic of the Kennedy era.

“It was quite an afternoon, that Friday,” Caesar said of JFK’s assassination. “It really was something I think all of us of that era, we had to think ‘What is going on?’”

Dave Fowler, a board member of the Glade Run Lake Conservancy, was a fifth-grader in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Fowler was in the audiovisual room watching television for a special project with a handful of other students when the horrifying news appeared on the screen that Kennedy had been shot.

“I didn’t know what to make of it. I was young enough still that I was like ‘What do they mean?’” Fowler said. “I was just kind of confused.”

He could not remember if students were dismissed from class and sent home.

“I remember the teacher that was with us was very upset,” Fowler said.