FAYETTEVILLE, ARK.- The Clinton House Museum launched a new exhibit entitled “Clinton Meets Kennedy” to commemorate the famous handshake and week of profound impact that kicked off President Clinton’s life of public service in 1963. This year’s 67th session of Boys Nation marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic and cherished moments in the program’s storied history: when a camera snapped a picture of a baby-faced Bill Clinton shaking hands with then-President John F. Kennedy.

Clinton, a 1963 Boys Nation graduate, was in the White House rose garden on July 24, 1963, with the senators from his class as Kennedy addressed the group. As Clinton recalls, he “muscled his way” through the masses and made sure he was front and center when Kennedy approached to shake everyone’s hands.

Clinton addressed this year’s class saying, “I hope that whatever you choose to do in your lives, whatever career you choose, that your week in Boys Nation will inspire the same desire to give back to your community, your country and the people all over the world, the opportunity to serve, to advance the cause of freedom and to empower people everywhere to make the most of their God-given skills is greater than it has ever been.”

Officially added to the National Register on January 22, 2010, the Clinton House was the home of many people and families that were influential in local, state, and national events. The property is the one time home of both former President William Jefferson Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Clintons were married in the living room of the house in October 1975. They lived in the home while professors at the University of Arkansas School of Law as Clinton reorganized from a failed political campaign for the U. S. House of Representatives, and ultimately successfully campaigned for his first elected office as Attorney General of Arkansas. The couple would leave their first home in Fayetteville and move into The White House a mere seventeen years later.