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As per Jim Tavarozzi and Jerry Hart: John was attending Northwestern State U (Louisiana) on a baseball scholarship and was shot March, 1962 just priol to graduation. He was engaged to be married in June to Ms Boden. He was going into the Army as a 2nd Lieutenant, as he was the ranking officer in his ROTC class.
Jerry Hart was a tennis player, and John contacted him and told him to apply for a tennis scholarship at Northwestern State, as they were looking for tennis players. Jerry applied, got his scholarship, and as a result he was on campus when John was shot. John was somewhat accomplished as a "BMOC" during his time at the school.
John's death was a case of mistaken identity, but they weren't students. Instead, they mistakenly thought John had assaulted one of their buddies. He was killed going up the stairs of his off campus apartment.
John was also a disk jockey for the town's local radio station.
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Tim Yarde
John died in college in Louisiana in an accidental shooting in 1962. I was in the Army in Louisiana at the time and it made the front page in our local paper. There were very few details initially, but it was truly a tragedy.
Norman Tople
I went to grade school with John at St. Lukes GS. There some really good sports activites at St Lukes at that time. At Mackenzie, John excelled there too. I thought that maybe John might try out for professional baseball. His batting average was pretty good. I was on Mackenzies swimming team and worked out at Detroits Patton pool after school. Many on the swim team at Mackenzie worked out that pool after school. Mackenzie had a very good swimming team. So I didn't get a chance to watch John play baseball.