In February I made a quick visit to Austin to share Unheard Witness at Bookwoman, a historic bookstore in town, where I joined in conversation with Forrest Preece, a survivor of the tower shooting on August 1, 1966.
I was also able to speak at a book group that has been meeting for more than forty years. I was invited to this amazing gathering by RuthAnn Lostracco, who was a roommate/suite mate and friend of Kathy Leissner Whitman at UT Austin, along with Rose Ann Thorsky, also a roommate. RuthAnn and Rose Ann had not seen each other in sixty years! The morning after the book group met, we took a drive to apartments in Austin where they had known Kathy as young undergraduate students.
It was moving to visit those spaces where Kathy lived with people who had known her and enjoyed her company for a short time.
Kathy had been catching her second wind as a university student in 1963, reconnecting with family and friends, studying hard to secure her degree. But that was before everything was taken away from her.
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