When John met John

Not many have lived a life as full of surprises as Flyer John Bunn. His teenage and young adult years were filled with life-changing experiences, one of which he re-enacted recently at the University of Dayton.

He did not know it at the time, but when Bunn was just 14 years old, he met a man who would go on to be one of the most influential figures in U.S. history. It was Bunn’s Irish-German mother who had the idea to take Bunn and his sister to a political candidate’s rally in Jacksonville, Florida, during the early 1960s. Based on the size of the crowd, it was clear many others saw the same value in this rally as Bunn’s mother did. 

“The park was absolutely packed. If you would have been able to take an aerial view of what was there you would not have been able to see the ground,” Bunn said.

Once Bunn and his family arrived where the candidate was to give his speech, Bunn noticed a line forming through the crowd. He promptly joined that line and eventually broke off once he reached a hedge that separated the stage from the rest of the scenery. He ended up being only 6 or 7 feet away from the speaker, and that proximity granted him the opportunity of a lifetime.

Bunn may have been too young to understand what the candidate was expressing, but he said he remembers many profound details about the speaker.

“What was most interesting was that when he was speaking, with each plosive, you could see the spray, like a mist coming out,” he said. “I have sort of a profile from where I was standing and I was seeing the capillaries in his ruddy complexion and his auburn hair.”

Bunn was utterly captivated by the candidate, and when he was finished speaking, Bunn was prompted to take action.

“He finished, I got through that hedge and went up to the gazebo and reached up, and as I reached up, he reached down and we shook hands.”

On that day in Jacksonville, 14-year-old John Bunn shook hands with the man who would become the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

Four years later, Bunn began his education at the University of Dayton, but the trajectory of his life became anything but predictable. The summer after his freshman year, Bunn went up to Alaska and helped supply the Native American towns and military bases around the Yukon River. When he was preparing to return to UD, he received his draft notice for Vietnam.

“One minute, I thought I was going back to UD, and the next minute, I realized I’m going into the Army ...”

“One minute, I thought I was going back to UD, and the next minute, I realized I'm going into the Army or some other branch of service,” he said

He was drafted, specialized in military intelligence, and served in the Vietnam War.

Bunn never completed his degree at UD, but he said he always remembered his time as a Flyer fondly. He returned to campus for the first time in 50 years for Reunion Weekend last year and, as he traversed UD’s campus, he saw a familiar figure reaching out to him from in front of Kennedy Union — a statue of JFK, originally erected on campus in 1964, by sculptor William Thompson.

Harkening back to 60 years ago, as JFK reached down, Bunn reached up and placed his hand in the statue’s hand, reuniting them once again.