Strength in stone
Next year, a polished granite monument honoring U.S. Secret Service agent Clinton J. Hill will be installed in Washburn’s Veterans Memorial Park, capping plans to commemorate his 17-year career protecting five presidents and his iconic leap onto President John F. Kennedy’s limousine in Dallas.
Hill, born in Larimore and raised in Washburn, joined the Secret Service in 1958 and protected Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford before retiring as assistant director of protective operations in 1975. He is best known for leaping onto the back of the presidential limousine in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, to shield First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
Hill later authored four memoirs, including Mrs. Kennedy and Me, and received North Dakota’s highest civilian honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, in 2018.