Lash Hansborough

Navy ROTC Employee, Liberal Arts Building

00:00 / 10:20
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Lash Hansborough was 23 years old in August of 1966. He had just graduated UT-Austin in June with a degree in mechanical engineering

Hansborough was in the Navy ROTC program that summer in the nuclear power program on campus. His office faced away from the Tower and he did not see anything when the shooting first began. He heard the sounds when the shooting began but did not realize what was going on.

“It sounded to me like someone was beating a hammer on a wooden scaffold…. In no way did I associate it with rifle shots,” Hansborough says.

Hansborough always went to his parents’ house for lunch. He started heading home when he heard on his car radio the shooting was going on. He turned around to go back to campus to see if he could help but he couldn’t get past police barricades.

When he found out Charles Whitman was the shooter, Hansborough recalled doing homework with Whitman often during the year before the shooting.

“He had a flat top and was a nerdy engineering student… I could kinda sense there was kind of a hair trigger inside of him somewhere,” Hansborough says.