When Dr. Janet Gorman McCarthy introduces Robert Kennedy Jr. at Missouri Western State University’s convocation dinner Wednesday, it will be their first time meeting. But Dr. McCarthy’s history with the Kennedy family dates back to the 1960s.

Dr. McCarthy, who was president at Western for 17 years (then known as Dr. Janet Gorman Murphy), was raised on the East Coast where she currently lives. She worked for the Massachusetts State College system in the 1960s and would often take calls from Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office regarding education issues. When Teddy’s older brother Robert ran for president, he asked Dr. McCarthy to work on his brother’s campaign.

She took a leave of absence from her job and hit the campaign trail as an unpaid volunteer, going to Indiana, South Dakota and California. In the ensuing eight weeks, Dr. McCarthy got to know Robert very well and was near him on two historic occasions, including the one that took his life.

While campaigning in South Dakota, Mr. Kennedy asked her to take a side trip and visit an American Indian reservation where living conditions were far from ideal.

“Sen. Kennedy was very interested in the have-nots,” Dr. McCarthy said. “As soon as I got back he wanted to talk to me about what I had seen and what I felt about what I saw.”

Dr. McCarthy’s father was an elected official in Massachusetts. She spent her vacations with him at the statehouse, and she knew a thing or two about campaigning. Her job on the Kennedy campaign was to assemble thousands at the speaking events. It was at one of these speaking events that she witnessed Mr. Kennedy’s compassion and earnestness.

“I was very close to him when he told the group of people that (Martin Luther) King had died,” she said of the announcement Mr. Kennedy made in Indianapolis on the day of Dr. King’s assassination. The mixed black and white crowd hadn’t yet heard the news. “I think most people would have expected a big uproar, but they didn’t. They responded to his voice and responded to the fact that he too had lost a brother.”

The campaign swung through California a couple of months later. Dr. McCarthy was there. She and other volunteers were to have dinner with Mr. Kennedy after his speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. Everything changed when she heard the assassin’s gunshots, watched the chaos, and froze with fear before being pulled out of the mess by one of Mr. Kennedy’s cousins.

“All around me, people were going crazy,” she said. “Everything was hysteria.”

Robert was her favorite Kennedy. Those critical of Robert would refer to him as ruthless, which Dr. McCarthy said was a valuable trait given that as a prosecuting attorney he dealt with mobsters and wayward Teamsters. But she found him to be passionate rather than ruthless.

Forty years later, Dr. McCarthy will again be in the presence of a Kennedy as she introduces environmental activist, writer and attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the convocation dinner.

Thousands will have the opportunity to see Mr. Kennedy speak at the 16th-annual Convocation on Critical Issues at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the M.O. Looney Complex at Missouri Western State University. The event is free and open to the public.

Mr. Kennedy is chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeepers, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Mr. Kennedy’s 2004 book, “Crimes Against Nature,” examines the environmental policies of the United States.

According to a Western news release, as a keynote speaker, Mr. Kennedy delivers a “passionate defense of the environment and describes how its continued neglect affects the future of the planet and the health of future generations. He advocates a direct and aggressive approach against entities whose policies accelerate pollution and maintain the status quo.”

Jimmy Myers can be reached

at jimmym@npgco.com.