Rachel Stone’s story

In September of 2001, Rachel Stone was studying journalism at UT and worked for The Daily Texan. On 9/11, she was in a mandatory upper-level design class when someone came into the room and whispered to the professor. A short while later, someone turned on a TV in the room, and the students watched live reports of the events unfolding on the East Coast.

The rest of the day, Stone reported as best she could on the campus reaction and ensuing policy shifts. Her reporting documented a mass vigil attended by the sitting Governor, campus protests and reactions to those and the enactment of campus and city emergency protocols, including added security for the Tower, which was briefly feared a potential target.

“I just worked the rest of the day,” Stone said. “I didn’t go to any of my classes. I just kind of threw myself into it. I just remember walking around campus all day, sort of roaming around campus, talking to people, and sort of getting the vibe. A lot of people just didn’t know what to do or think. It’s one of those moments where there’s nothing you can do, but you wish that you could do something, and it’s just hard to fathom.”

The vigil gave students and the broader Austin community a space to gather and mourn, and for Stone, it offered a chance to envelop herself in work she found meaningful, but somber.

“You can imagine it being like a football game, only for a funeral,” Stone said of the crowd size. “It was really sad and scary. We didn’t know from reading those stories; we didn’t know what had happened; we didn’t know who was responsible; we didn’t know if something else was going to happen. So, there was a feeling of unity, however, also a feeling of fear, and you could tell people were already wanting to sort of point fingers.”

Stone continued her journalism pursuits and is now the senior editor of The Real Deal, a national real estate news outlet.

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