160505 TBT Week 31 - Letter from US Senator John F. Kennedy to Milwaukie High School Principal Jerome Lillie dated May 3, 1960, and photo of Senator Kennedy and MHS Students

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56 years ago this week ‪#‎MHS‬ principal Jerome Lillie received a thank you note from US Senator John F. Kennedy. Amid the current presidential campaign season we are throwing back to the 1960 campaign and this note to Mr. Lillie and a picture of Senator Kennedy and ‪#‎MilwaukieHigh‬ students during one of his visits to ‪#‎Oregon‬. ‪#‎MilwaukieTBT‬ ‪#‎POTUS‬ ‪#‎JFK‬ ‪#‎PresidentialCampaign‬ Photo Credit: Milwaukie High School. Visit our community partners at the ‪#‎MilwaukieHistoricalSociety‬ on Facebook here: http://ow.ly/UioOe ‪#‎OregonHeritage‬ During the course of the 1960 presidential campaign Senator Kennedy visited Oregon and Milwaukie on several occasions – in part to ask for votes in an up-and-coming suburban community, but also because the Senator was a friend of Milwaukie’s State Senator Monroe Sweetland, who many credit as being the “Father of the Modern Democratic Party in Oregon”. Sweetland served as Oregon’s Democratic National Committeeman for most of the 1950s and befriended many political icons of the era. In addition to serving in the State Legislature, Sweetland was also the owner of the Milwaukie Review.