Clif Drummond

Student, The Drag

00:00 / 10:20
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Clif Drummond was the new student body President at UT-Austin on Aug. 1, 1966. Drummond was in the Co-op when the shooting began. He says he finished his shopping just before noon and walked across “the Drag” and up towards the Student Union Building when he heard rifle shots and someone shouted that a person was shooting.

Drummond made it into the Student Union but decided to go back outside with a friend to try to help other students.

“We zig-zagged across Guadalupe because we could see a young man who was sitting up — but he was leaning against a parking meter and he was directly across from us,” Drummond says. “That’s when the shooter saw us and started firing us. We were running pretty fast but I remember the chips of pavement coming near me.”

Neither Drummond nor his friend were hurt but the man they were trying to rescue was already dead. Later, Drummond found out that man was Paul Sonntag — a person he knew.