Gary Lavergne | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gary Mitchell Lavergne October 28, 1955 Church Point, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Education | University of Louisiana at Lafayette (BA) McNeese State University |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Spouse | Laura Clayton (date missing) |
| Children | 4 |
| Website | |
| garylavergne | |
Gary Mitchell Lavergne (born October 28, 1955) is an American non-fiction author. Among his subjects are killers Charles J. Whitman and Kenneth Allen McDuff.
Lavergne was born in October 28, 1955 [1] Church Point, Louisiana, son of Nolan and Bobbie Lavergne. He attended Church Point High School and graduated in 1973. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies education and a master's in education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1988, he earned an education specialist degree in educational administration and supervision from McNeese State University. [2] He was a social studies teacher, held administrative positions for both the SAT and the ACT. [2] He worked for the College Board traveling to universities helping administrators understand the SAT. [2]
Lavergne retired as director of admissions research for the University of Texas in 2019. [3] Among Lavergne's books is 1997's A Sniper in the Tower about the 1966 shooting rampage of Charles Whitman, [4] which according to a 2007 Associated Press article is "considered the definitive account of the massacre" [5] and to Frank Rich in a 1997 The New York Times piece is "the authoritative account of the Whitman case". [4] He decided to write the book after watching a TV special on mass murder, realizing that there had never been a book published about the shooting. [2]
He is married to Laura Clayton, with whom he has four children. [6]
Charles Joseph Whitman was an American mass murderer and Marine veteran who became known as the "Texas Tower Sniper". On August 1, 1966, Whitman used knives to kill his mother and his wife in their respective homes, then went to the University of Texas at Austin with multiple firearms and began indiscriminately shooting at people. He fatally shot three people inside UT Austin's Main Building, then accessed the 28th-floor observation deck on the building's clock tower. There, he fired at random people for 96 minutes, killing an additional eleven people and wounding 31 others before he was shot dead by Austin Texas law enforcement. Whitman killed a total of seventeen people; the 17th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. UNT's main campus is in Denton, Texas, and it also has a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas. It offers 114 bachelor's, 97 master's, and 39 doctoral degree programs. UNT is the flagship member of the University of North Texas System, which includes additional universities in Dallas and Fort Worth. Established in 1890, UNT is one of the largest universities in the United States.
Texas House Bill 588, commonly referred to as the "Top 10% Rule", is a Texas law passed in 1997. It was signed into law by then governor George W. Bush on May 20, 1997. The law guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class automatic admission to all state-funded universities.
The University of North Texas at Dallas (UNTD) is a public university in Dallas, Texas. It opened in 2000 as a branch campus of the University of North Texas, offering upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in multiple disciplines. In 2009 it became a free-standing university, offering a full undergraduate program as well as graduate work. UNT Dallas is the only public university based within Dallas city limits.
The University of Texas at Austin was originally conceived in 1827 under an article in the Constitución de Coahuila y Texas to open a public university in the state of Texas. The Constitution of 1876 also called for the creation of "The University of Texas” By the late 1990s, the university had the largest enrollment in the country and contained many of the country's top programs in the areas of law, architecture, film, engineering, and business.
Heman Marion Sweatt was an African-American civil rights activist who confronted Jim Crow laws. He is best known for the Sweatt v. Painter lawsuit, which challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine and was one of the earliest of the events that led to the desegregation of American higher education.
Ramiro "Ray" Martinez is a former Austin Police Department officer whose actions contributed to the ending of the University of Texas tower shootings when he, two other officers and a deputized civilian reached and killed sniper Charles Whitman on August 1, 1966.
Dallas Christian School is a private, preparatory Christian day school for boys and girls located in Mesquite, Texas. The school offers classes for students ranging from pre-kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Dallas Christian School is a member of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS).
Kenneth Allen McDuff was an American serial killer from Texas. In 1966, McDuff and an accomplice kidnapped and murdered three teenagers who were visiting from California. He was given three death sentences for these crimes but avoided execution after the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Furman v. Georgia. He was resentenced to life and was paroled in 1989. Between October 1989 and March 1992, McDuff raped and killed at least six women, receiving another death sentence and was later executed in 1998.
Texas has over 1,000 public school districts—all but one of the school districts in Texas are independent, separate from any form of municipal or county government. School districts may cross city and county boundaries. Independent school districts have the power to tax their residents and to assert eminent domain over privately owned property. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) oversees these districts, providing supplemental funding, but its jurisdiction is limited mostly to intervening in poorly performing districts.
The University of Texas Police at Houston is a full-service Police Department that serves the communities of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. UT Police at Houston patrols the Texas Medical Center and has property in surrounding counties.
The W. F. Ramsey Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison farm located in unincorporated Brazoria County, Texas, with a Rosharon postal address; it is not inside the Rosharon census-designated place. The prison is located on Farm to Market Road 655, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Farm to Market Road 521, and south of Houston. The 16,369-acre (6,624 ha) unit is co-located with the Stringfellow Unit and the Terrell Unit.
Christopher Scott Kyle was a United States Navy SEAL sniper. He served four tours in the Iraq War and was awarded several commendations for acts of heroism and meritorious service in combat. He had 160 confirmed kills and was awarded a Silver Star, three Bronze Star Medals with "V" devices for valor, 2x Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with "V" device, as well as numerous other unit and personal awards.
The Deadly Tower is a 1975 American made-for-television action drama thriller film directed by Jerry Jameson. It stars Kurt Russell and Richard Yniguez and is based on the University of Texas tower shooting.
Church Point High School (CPHS) is a senior high school serving students in grades 9–12 in Church Point, Louisiana and other communities, such as Richard, Branch, and Mire. It is a part of the Acadia Parish School Board.
The University of Texas tower shooting was an act of mass murder that occurred on August 1, 1966, at the University of Texas at Austin. The perpetrator, 25-year-old Marine veteran Charles Whitman, indiscriminately fired at members of the public, both within the Main Building tower and from the tower's observation deck. He shot and killed 15 people, including an unborn child, and injured 31 others before he was killed by two Austin Police Department officers approximately 96 minutes after first opening fire from the observation deck.
On February 2, 2013, Christopher Scott Kyle and his friend Chad Hutson Littlefield were shot to death at a shooting range near Chalk Mountain, Texas, by Eddie Ray Routh. The two were walking down range to set up targets when Routh opened fire with two handguns and hit both of them. Routh, a former Marine who was 25 years old at the time, had post-traumatic stress disorder. The case attracted national attention due to Kyle's fame as author of a bestselling autobiography, American Sniper, published in 2012.
The 1984 Dallas nightclub shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on June 29, 1984, in Dallas, Texas. Abdelkrim Belachheb, a 39-year-old Moroccan national and resident alien, opened fire in Ianni's Restaurant and Club, a bar, killing six and severely injuring one.
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