Like anyone of a certain age, Barbara Morris remembers where she was when she learned President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, 58 years ago Monday.

       “I was in the Navy, stationed in Hawaii,” said Morris, 89, a writer who lives in Falls Church, Va. “That night, we had a party scheduled at the Officers’ Club. That was called off. I just remember the shock, the complete shock.”

       Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight

       The shock was made more personal by the fact that Kennedy had once toured the naval base that Morris — the only female officer in her unit — was at. He’d even caught her eye as he drove past the row of Navy personnel lined up in review, directing a salute her way.

       Years later, Morris communed with JFK’s memory regularly, as a volunteer tour guide at the Kennedy Center.

       Story continues below advertisement

       Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, had supported the idea of a national cultural center on the banks of the Potomac River. On Jan. 23, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 88-260, creating the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, “the sole national memorial to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy within the city of Washington and its environs.”

       Advertisement

       The Kennedy Center is a big building. It’s full of big things. Few are bigger than the eight-foot-tall, 3,000-pound bronze head of Kennedy outside the Opera House, the creation of New York sculptor Robert Berks.

       As a tour guide, Morris used to see a lot of that head. When researching her 1994 book, “The Kennedy Center: An Insider’s Guide to Washington’s Liveliest Memorial,” she called up Berks and asked him how he created it.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “He was a really pleasant person. He gave me a great deal of time,” said Morris, whose latest book is “The Sacred Ball Game.”

       When Berks learned that Kennedy had died, he was moved to mark his passing with a piece of art. He told Morris that he pulled out dozens of photos of JFK and spread them on the floor. Then he climbed to the top of a 12-foot ladder and gazed down on them.

       Advertisement

       The many photos caught many different moods, and that’s what Berks wanted his sculpture to do.

       “He wanted people to look at the different expressions on the president’s face: his character, his youth, his athleticism,” Morris said. “He even said it helped to express his vulnerability.”

       Story continues below advertisement

       Berks fashioned a half-life-size bust in his distinctively loose style. The Kennedy family’s affection for that sculpture led to the large commission for the performing arts center, Morris said.

       But how big to make it? The Grand Foyer is 630 feet long. Too small, and the bust would be lost. Berks painted six-, eight- and 10-foot-high plywood panels with a likeness of the president’s head. These he placed them in an abandoned potato field near his Long Island home on which he had marked out 630 feet.

       Eight feet tall, he decided.

       Advertisement

       Berks told Morris: “The size and placement of the bust seem to reduce the scale of the Grand Foyer. You get the feeling that you and the president are totally alone. He fills the place. He is the life force of the center.”

       Story continues below advertisement

       The bust was cast in Italy, an expedited job so it would be ready for the center’s opening on Sept. 8, 1971. Berks later told a reporter: “The workmen at the foundry were so devoted to Kennedy they worked overtime, and when there were strikes, they wouldn’t go on strike.”

       The massive bust was raised by forklift onto a DC8 at an American air base in Italy. Berks accompanied it, the only passenger.

       “Halfway across the Atlantic, at the point of no return, there was trouble with the emergency oxygen supply, so they flew on to Gander, Newfoundland, at 12,000 feet through ‘really bumpy weather,’？” Morris wrote in her book.

       Advertisement

       On the final leg to Washington, the plane had to fly through thunderstorms. Lightning cracked the sky, and the blue light of St. Elmo’s fire danced around the fuselage.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “I said to [Berks], ‘Weren’t you absolutely terrified, not just for your life but for this masterpiece?’？” Morris said. “That’s when he said, very calmly, that, no, he wasn’t. He felt he had a guardian angel, and he thought he would get through.”

       Berks died in 2011. His other monumental works in Washington include the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial in Lincoln Park and the Albert Einstein Memorial on Constitution Avenue NW.

       “The excitement that Kennedy was grips me,” Berks told the Associated Press before the Kennedy Center’s dedication 50 years ago. “I am still deeply moved. If I am to be judged by any one thing, I am willing to be judged by this.”

       Helping Hand

       We’re a week into our Helping Hand fundraising drive. That’s The Washington Post’s annual fundraising drive for three worthy local charities: Bread for the City, Friendship Place and Miriam’s Kitchen. To learn about them — and make a donation — visit posthelpinghand.com.

       Twitter: @johnkelly

       For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.