MAY 4, 1970 will be a day that will always be painfully etched in Ohio history.

On that fateful day, bloodshed spilled on the campus of Kent State University.

Kent State students were protesting the Vietnam War, not uncommon on colleges throughout the U.S. during that time. Those Kent State protests, however, resulted in the Ohio National Guard shooting and killing four students and injuring nine others.

The university, the state and the entire country mourned a shocking and national-dividing tragedy.

Time stood still.

The Kent State shootings are more than four decades removed, but the scars still remain. They always will.

Kent State officials have taken steps to ensure future generations will be aware of what transpired that fateful day.

University officials have scheduled a host of activities to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the shootings.

Some of the events include workshops, panel discussions, musical performances, a documentary screening, as well a presentation by comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory.

Moreover, Kent State has developed an online newsroom with all types of information.

We commend university officials for embracing and chronicling one of the most significant event of the 20th Century.

Kent officials opened a May 4 Visitors Center this past?October. It is housed in a building overlooking the shooting site and contains much memorabilia from that fateful day.

Time is a great healer.

That is again reflected at Kent State.

Forty-five years after one of the most horrific events on U.S. soil, the university and nation have moved past remorse and anger. Those feelings have been replaced by a need to educate.