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WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward Kennedy never set foot in Dallas after his brother's assassination. But he spent plenty of time in Texas through the years, stumping for himself and others, courting donors, accepting awards.

He probably changed planes a hundred times at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, aides said. But he avoided Dallas itself, so as not to dwell on the murder or distract from other political goals.

The John F. Kennedy memorial was dedicated in 1970 and rededicated 30 years later, without the senator or any other family members on hand. Ted Kennedy turned down numerous invitations from The Sixth Floor Museum and from Dallas Democrats hoping he would agree to speak in town.

"He never shunned Texas. It was only Dallas," said Martin Frost, a Dallas Democrat who served 26 years in the U.S. House. "The staff was very nice about it. They just said, 'He doesn't come to Dallas.' "

The fact that he avoided Dallas after November 1963 reflected no animosity, aides insisted through the years.

"Emotionally, they do not want to revisit that pain and grief," a longtime family spokeswoman, Melody Miller, told The Dallas Morning News in 2003.

The 1995 Special Olympics would have provided an opening for a visit. The games for mentally disabled athletes, founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her husband, came close to finalizing the city's host bid in 1992 but backed away at the last minute. Special Olympics officials said the Kennedys' sad links with Dallas would generate too much unwanted publicity.

It was only Dallas that Kennedy and most of his kin avoided. In November 2003, he went to the Bush presidential library in College Station to accept a public service award from former President George H.W. Bush.

And early last year, when Barack Obama needed to offset Hillary Rodham Clinton's popularity among South Texas Hispanics in the Democratic presidential race, Kennedy headlined several big Obama rallies.

Edward Kennedy had been his brother's emissary to Texas in the 1960 campaign. He resumed regular forays in 1978 or so, ahead of his ill-fated 1980 challenge to President Jimmy Carter, building the effort around his South Texas base.

"You go into a lot of those homes, there's a picture of Jesus Christ, the Pope and John Kennedy. Sometimes Jackie, sometimes Teddy," said Garry Mauro, executive director of the state Democratic Party at the time.

Bill Carrick, a Los Angeles-based strategist who ran the 1980 Kennedy operation in Texas, said the senator had no qualms about spending time in Texas, though Carter had the nomination basically sewn up by then and Kennedy lost the state 2-to-1.

"It wasn't like 'I'm never going to Dallas,' " Carrick said. But "he didn't like the idea of dwelling on the assassination ... [and] he didn't want to do anything that would make Dallas an object of criticism."