Lauren Blackburn
The body of Lauren Blackburn, the Princeton University undergraduate student who has been missing since Saturday, was recovered this morning (April 25) from Lake Carnegie, according to a statement from the University.
No details were shared, but a statement by Regan Crotty, Dean of Undergraduate Students, reads, “I am deeply saddened to share with you that the body of Lauren Blackburn ’26 was found at Lake Carnegie this morning. Our hearts are heavy and we share our deepest condolences with Lauren’s family and friends. It is during these difficult times that we must draw strength and support from one another and from those in our community who are available to us for counsel and care.”
The statement directs students in need of counseling to reach out to Counseling and Psychological Services, the Office of Religious Life, chaplains, residential college staff, and Graduate School staff. Faculty and staff are advised to seek support from Carebridge.
Blackburn was last seen Saturday evening in the vicinity of Firestone Library. Emergency responders began searching for him around midnight on Tuesday after a phone signal pinged in the vicinity of Lake Carnegie. Boats, helicopters, and emergency vehicles were involved in the search, which continued throughout the week.
A National Merit Scholarship recipient and a former features writer for The Daily Princetonian, the University’s newspaper, Blackburn was from southern Indiana.
“We know that every member of our community joins us in sending our condolences to Lauren’s family, friends, and loved ones and in wishing them strength in this most difficult time,” writes Crotty.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Even before I read about those advertisements in Edward Tenner’s new book Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays on Unintended Consequences (American Philosophical Society Press $34.95), my interest in vintage cigarette ads had been stirred by a Broadhurst Theatre Playbill from 1934, three years before May 6, 1937, the day the Hindenburg crashed and burned on landing at Lakehurst N.J. Naval Air Station, killing 35 of the 97 passengers. By specifying the proportion of fatalities, Tenner leaves it up to us to assume that most of the victims were in the smoking lounge at the time (“under 7 million cubic feet of flammable gas”), a possibility underscored by a pointed reference to satirist Bruce McCall’s drawing of a Hindenburg prospectus showing a skeleton in an officer’s uniform asking elegant passengers, “Zigarette?”
