DALLAS (NEWSnet/AP) — Minutes after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot in Dallas, Associated Press reporter Peggy Simpson rushed to the scene and immediately attached herself to  police officers who had converged on the building from which a sniper's bullets had been fired.

“I was sort of under their armpit,” Simpson said.

Each time she was able to get any information from them, she rushed to a pay phone to call her editors, and then went “back to the cops.”

Simpson, now 84, is among the last surviving witnesses who are sharing their stories as the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination.

“A tangible link to the past is going to be lost when the last voices from that time period are gone,” said Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald’s perch was found.

“So many of the voices that were here, even 10 years ago, to share their memories — law enforcement officials, reporters, eyewitnesses — so many of those folks have passed away," he said.

Simpson, former U.S. Secret Service Agent Clint Hill and others are featured in “JFK: One Day in America,” a three-part series from National Geographic that pairs recollections with archival footage, some of which is colorized for the first time. Director Ella Wright said hearing from those who were there helps tell the “behind the scenes” story that augments archival footage.

“We wanted people to really understand what it felt like to be back there and to experience the emotional impact of those events,” Wright said.

On the day of the assassination, Simpson had been assigned to attend an evening fundraising dinner for Kennedy in Austin. With time on her hands before she needed to leave Dallas, she was sent to watch the presidential motorcade, but she wasn't near Dealey Plaza.

Simpson had no idea anything out of the ordinary had occurred until she arrived at The Dallas Times Herald's building, where the AP's office was located. She heard a newspaper receptionist say, “All we know is that the president has been shot," and then heard the editor briefing the staff.

She raced to the AP office in time to watch over the bureau chief's shoulder as he filed the news to the world, then ran to Texas School Book Depository to track down more information.

Later, at police headquarters, she said, she witnessed “just a wild, crazy chaotic, unfathomable scene.” Reporters had filled the hallways where an officer walked through with Oswal’s rifle  held aloft. The suspect's mother and wife arrived, and at one point authorities held a news conference where Oswald was asked questions by reporters.

“I was just with a great mass of other reporters, just trying to find any bit of information,” she said.

Two days later, Simpson was covering Oswald's transfer from police headquarters to the county jail, when nightclub owner Jack Ruby burst forth from a gaggle of news reporters and shot Oswald dead.

Simpson said she must have heard the gunshot, but she can’t remember it.

“Probably Ruby was 2 or 3 feet away from me but I didn’t know him, didn’t see him, didn’t see him come out from the crowd of reporters,” she said.

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