Newspaper Articles


Follansbee Review
October 7, 1959

Kennedy To Speak In Brooke County

Luncheon At Elks Country Club Expected To Draw Large Crowd

U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts will speak at the Elks Country Club, Bethany Pike, Saturday, October 10, at a luncheon. Arragements for the county-wide affair are being made by the Brooke County Democratic Executive Committee. The luncheon will be served at 1:00 p.m.

Senator Kennedy, who appears to be the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, will be accompanied by his wife Jacqueline, and members of his staff.

They are expected to arrive at the Ohio County Airport at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. Sen. Kennedy will hold a press conference at the airport and then motor to Wellsburg.

Mrs. Kennedy will leave the airport immediately after arriving for a society press conference at the Wellsburg home of John B. Chernenko, Brooke County Democratic Chairman. Mrs. Chernenko will be hostess at a coffee hour from 10:00 a.m. until noon.

Richard Barnes, Wellsburg Attorney, is dinner chairman and has arranged the program as follows: Invocation - Rev. Father John Halpin, pastor of St. John's Catholic Church, Wellsburg; Welcoming Address - John Chernenko, chairman Democratic Executive Committee; Toastmaster - Ralph E. Pryor, Brooke County Prosecuting Attorney; Introduction of Jennings Randolph; Introduction of Senator Kennedy by Jennings Randolph; Benediction - Rev. John J. Bates, pastor of the Follansbee Presbyterian Church.

Reservations for more than 500 persons have already been made for the luncheon, which promises to be one of the largest of its kind ever held in Brooke County. Assisting Chernenko with arrangements are Mrs. Ann Shute, associate chairman and Secretary of the Democratic Committee, and Mrs. Paul Bickerstaff, a member of the committee.

Following the luncheon, Sen. Kennedy and his party, will journey to Charleston, where the senator will be the principal speaker at a Democratic fund-raising dinner at 6:30 p.m. in the Civic Center.

Sen. Kennedy is the eldest of nine children. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, served under Franklin Roosevelt as Ambassador to Great Britian [sic] (1937-1941), and as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (1937).

The Senator's mother, Rose F. Kennedy, is the daughter of the late John F. Fitzgerald, one-time mayor of Boston, who more than fifty years ago represented in Congress the same Massachusetts District that Sen. Kennedy served from 1947 to 1953. The Senator's paternal grandfather, served both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature.

Senator Kennedy entered the Navy in 1941, and served as a PT boat Commander in the South Pacific during World War II. He was decorated twice by the Navy for the serious injuries he suffered when his PT boat was rammed in two while attacking a Japanese destroyer during a night action in the Solomons, and for "His courage, endurance and excellent leadership" in towing injured members of his crew to safety, and bring them through Japanese lines after nine days. In March of 1945, he was retired for injuries by the Navy.

Senator Kennedy has been victorious in five elections. In 1952 he defeated incumbent Senator Henry Cabot Lodge by 70,000 votes, despite an otherwise Republican sweep in which President Eisenhower carried the state by more than 210,000 votes. Senator Kennedy is only the third Democrat ever to be elected to the Senate from Massachusetts.

In 1958 Sen. Kennedy won re-election by a margin of more than 870,000 votes, the largest margin ever accorded a candidate for any office in either party in the history of Massachusetts, and the largest margin received by any candidate in the United States in 1958. His total vote exceeded 1,360,000 the largest vote received by any candidate in the history of that state.


| Campaign Summary |
| Visits by Date | Visits by County |

| Advertisements and Cartoons | Audio-Visual | Documents |
| Newspapers | Oral Histories | Photographs | Reminiscences | Speeches |


West Virginia Archives and History