Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole
7.24.16 Tower sniper terrorized UT fifty years ago
Shortly before noon on Monday, Aug. 1, 1966, twenty-five-year-old Charles Whitman carried a footlocker full of weapons and ammunition to the top of the thirty-story Tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the unsuspecting pedestrians below.
The slaughter — 14 dead, 32 injured — continued for nearly an hour and a half until Whitman was himself killed by Austin police.
Whitman’s death toll reached seventeen, including his wife and mother whom he murdered before taking over the tower’s observation deck. One of the thirty-two injured would die years later, ruled a homicide dating back to the wound Whitman inflicted.
A comprehensive new book by an Austin father and son team, Monte Akers and Nathan Akers, retraces the full story leading up to the mass murders and the resulting aftermath.
Tower Sniper: The Terror of America’s First Active Shooter on Campus (John M. Hardy Publishing, $24.95 hardcover) comes out this week in conjunction with the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the sniper attack. A trade paperback edition ($14.95) will be available in a few weeks, the publisher said.
Dr. Roger Friedman, a clinical psychologist, wrote the foreword and a chapter reflecting on the traumatic legacy of the Whitman massacre. One of Friedman’s closest childhood friends was killed that day. In spite of the tragic loss of life, the authors write, the Tower story also brought out the best in people who reacted courageously and unselfishly. “It is the story of people who did not look or walk away when they saw strangers in need,” they conclude. “It is a story of humans at their finest.”
Upbeat stories: My brother Charlie Dromgoole, who lives in College Station, has penned a collection of stories laughing about and reflecting on his forty-two-year career as a chamber of commerce executive.
Chamber Stories That I Can Tell (and some that I probably shouldn’t!) is not a how-to book about chamber management, but rather a personal, often humorous, look at situations and personalities he encountered along the way.
The forty-five pieces deal with his experiences in nine communities, including eight in Texas — Jasper, Brenham, Port Arthur, Sherman, Abilene, Round Rock, Lufkin, and Humble-Kingwood.
One of the funniest stories — “You Don’t Have to Be a History Buff to Be a Chamber Buff” — concerns a community effort to bring the Magna Carta to Sherman. On a more serious note, he reflects on Abilene’s successful campaign to be named an All-America City in 1990. The book ($11.95 paperback) is available online at texasstartrading.com or contact the author at charliedromgoole@gmail.com.
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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is More Civility, Please. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
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