60 years ago today

[General Grant]

A senseless tragedy occurred on our fine campus.  The Tower shooting.   The Tower is a good documentary on the matter. 
 

Hook em and RIP to the people lost 

[taxsaver]

Yep...I'll never forget that day.  I was a 9 year old kid playing outside and my friend came over and told me about it.  It was shocking.  Still is.

[Hawk44]

I was on South Congress when it happened and my father was down at the University.  In those days you could see the tower from where I was.  No skyscrapers in those days.

Very memorable day.  I guess I was 14 that day.

[General Grant]

Enjoy hearing the personal stories.  I wasn’t born yet.  Watched the Tower just now.  Shed a few tears 

[mmdaytontexas]

We moved from Austin to Houston and I remember my dad telling me and my brother about this. I was nine when it happened and it seemed surreal because how iconic the tower, the campus, and the Drag were to us.

Things always happen in Austin after I move. I lived in Austin again while at UT until 1982, and then moved back in 1986 for more school. In 1990 my wife, kids, and I moved back to the Houston area for work, and right after that move the Yogurt Shop murders occurred. I've been in the shop where it happened, and again it seemed surreal.

[Burnt Orange Horn]

I was driving down Lamar with my father to the SS office to get my card so I could enroll at UT. We were listening to KTBC AM in shock. I think Neal Spelce was covering it.

Edited 19 hours ago by Burnt Orange Horn

[General Grant]

29 minutes ago, Burnt Orange Horn said:

I was driving down Lamar with my father to the SS office to get my card so I could enroll at UT. We were listening to KTBC AM in shock. I think Neal Spelce was covering it.

He was featured on the documentary I noted above. 

[MarkInAustin]

I had just left the law school and turned on the AM radio in my beater Ford Falcon.  Neal Spelce was reporting.  The next hours were terrifying. 

That night, afterward, we were at Scholz's.  Law students, friends, girl friends, wives.  Joanne Weeks, Terry Weeks' wife, had been pinned to the floor of their old black Mercedes Benz parked on the Drag.  She knew there was shooting and panic and thought it was a riot.  It must have been 115 degrees in the car. 

Fred Helms, then an Air Force Captain and grad student, ducked behind the hedge at the foot of the Tower next to the stairwell.  After persons were shot on the south stairs, when Whitman would circle the Tower, Fred would time it and pull wounded victims in under the hedge with him, bandage them if possible.

There were so many stories that day.  So much fear, so much panic.  

One of the later revelations: Whitman had told a UT Health Service Psychiatrist, a good one, by the way, that he had thoughts of shooting people from the Tower.  Of course it was not known during Whitman's life that he had a tumor.

 

 

[GoHorns1]

I was 15 visiting my grandparents in Weimar Tx. It’s also my brother’s birthday today (72).

[General Grant]

16 hours ago, MarkInAustin said:

I had just left the law school and turned on the AM radio in my beater Ford Falcon.  Neal Spelce was reporting.  The next hours were terrifying. 

That night, afterward, we were at Scholz's.  Law students, friends, girl friends, wives.  Joanne Weeks, Terry Weeks' wife, had been pinned to the floor of their old black Mercedes Benz parked on the Drag.  She knew there was shooting and panic and thought it was a riot.  It must have been 115 degrees in the car. 

Fred Helms, then an Air Force Captain and grad student, ducked behind the hedge at the foot of the Tower next to the stairwell.  After persons were shot on the south stairs, when Whitman would circle the Tower, Fred would time it and pull wounded victims in under the hedge with him, bandage them if possible.

There were so many stories that day.  So much fear, so much panic.  

One of the later revelations: Whitman had told a UT Health Service Psychiatrist, a good one, by the way, that he had thoughts of shooting people from the Tower.  Of course it was not known during Whitman's life that he had a tumor.

 

 

Fascinating details 

[JimR6]

I had been to SA that weekend to visit my GF and was driving back hime for my 10 am class in the English Bldg. I had to be at work at noon, and I had an important errand after class which would have taken me on to the Main Mall, down to the Co-Op, and back to go to my car. I do not know the timing of all this with Whitman’s opening fire, but I definitely would have been in harm’s way if I tarried long at the Co-Op.

instead, I decided to cut my class and to run the errand later, and I went home to get ready for work. My Dad called and said: “I am glad you are home. There is a guy on the Tower shooting people.” “Oh, sure,” says I, and he said “Turn on the radio.” I was glued to a radio the rest of the day. TV was not a factor then.