Judy Winkel Brooks was on campus on Aug. 1, 1966 for freshman orientation. She was planning to attend UT that fall.
Winkel Brooks remembers freshman orientation was fun until the shooting began. She says on one of the tours of campus they heard “popping” noises and were told to duck. The tour guides then scooted the students into the Home Economics Building to take cover.
“Luckily there was a pay phone in that building and I knew my brother had class that morning — he was going to summer school so I went to pay phone and called him and caught him before he left for class — because he walked right across the mall to get to his class — where many of the victims were shot,” Winkel Brooks says.
She says her brother then took his rifle up on top of the dorm he was in to try to stop Charles Whitman from shooting more people.