RCC Professor Jo Scott-Coe Receives Prestigious Texas History Award for Unheard Witness

Riverside City College proudly announces that Professor Jo Scott-Coe has received a 2025 book award from the San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation for her most recent work, Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman (University of Texas Press). This prestigious bi-annual award honors books that make significant contributions to the historical and cultural record of Texas and educate the general public. Widely regarded as a “Top 10 Books About Texas” recognition, the award is part of the Society’s long-standing mission—since 1924—to advocate for historical preservation across the state.

Unheard Witness is the product of more than a decade of research and marks the first time a major archive of personal letters written by Kathy Leissner Whitman has been accessed and explored. The book centers the voice and life of Kathy—an educator and writer—who was killed in 1966 by her husband, Charles Whitman, shortly before he committed the infamous mass shooting from the University of Texas Tower in Austin. Scott-Coe’s work reframes the public narrative, shifting attention from the perpetrator to the private world of the woman he killed, revealing her experiences of domestic abuse, resistance, and survival in the years leading up to the tragedy.

Professor Scott-Coe began this research during her Riverside Community College District sabbatical in 2016–17 and continued building the project through deep archival work, interviews, and critical analysis. The book not only illuminates Kathy’s life but also engages broader themes of gendered violence, media silence, and historical erasure—issues that remain profoundly relevant today.

Scott-Coe accepted the award at a luncheon and book signing in San Antonio on March 28, 2025, where she spoke alongside other distinguished authors and academic researchers. In her remarks, she shared:

“So often it is hard to hear what history may have to teach us, decades or centuries later. But it is no less challenging to struggle alone inside an experience of abuse that you do not feel you can share and that you cannot know will become smothered by unimaginable violence. It is a sobering honor to accept this award nearly sixty years after Kathy’s murder and the UT Tower shooting, knowing that 10 million Americans a year still experience abuse by an intimate partner—and that in 68% of mass shootings, the perpetrator kills a partner or family member or has a history of domestic violence prior to the public crime. Had Kathy escaped and lived, she would be 81 years old… She should be here with us, like too many survivors who simply ran out of time.”

This recognition highlights the national and historical significance of Unheard Witness, while also underscoring Riverside City College’s support of faculty-led scholarship that brings hidden stories to light. The college celebrates Professor Scott-Coe’s achievement and the critical conversations her work continues to inspire.