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Small Texas town remembers Columbia disaster

 


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The space shuttle Columbia hurtles toward space on Jan. 16, 2003. The 16-day research mission ended in tragedy Feb. 1, when the shuttle exploded in the skies over Texas. UMNS photo courtesy NASA, Photo number 04-028, Accompanies UMNS #026, 1/27/04

Honoring the Shuttle Columbia
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Small Texas town remembers Columbia disaster

Jan. 27, 2004

HEMPHILL, Texas (UMNS) - The quiet skies over this small Texas town exploded one year ago when the space shuttle Columbia crashed, killing all seven astronauts on board.

A committee is planning a $5 million memorial on the site where a 500-pound chunk of the shuttle's nose cone was found. The people of Hemphill feel a special tie to the tragedy because most of the astronauts' remains were found in that area.

Bob Morgan, chief of the Six Mile Volunteer Fire Department, was sitting in his living room when he heard the crash on Feb. 1, 2003.

"Suddenly the house starting shaking," he says, "and there was a tremendous roaring noise."

Morgan, a retired criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service and a member of First (Hemphill) United Methodist Church, says when he and other firefighters initially began searching, they did not know it was the space shuttle that had crashed.

Columbia fell apart just moments before its scheduled landing at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The flight that began 16 days earlier ended in tragedy because a small piece of foam breached the left wing of the shuttle in the last seconds after liftoff. A 248-page report released by NASA said politics, budgets, schedule pressure and managerial complacency all played roles in the disaster.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Bob Morgan led search and recovery efforts for remains of Space Shuttle Columbia.

Morgan remembers the search was exhausting and encompassed days of combing through briars, dense woods and swamps in rain and sleet.

"I remember the second evening I came in and told my wife I'd never been that tired since I played high-school football," he says. "It was almost an excruciating pain by the time you got through with it."

Other members of First United Methodist Church came together to walk the search lines and support the searchers.

"In doing that, they got to know each other in a different way that brought them closer together," says the Rev. Sherry Crenshaw, pastor.

"I believe God calls us to live and work in community," she says. "And our society is losing that. We live in little isolated houses rather than the community as a whole."

No one on the ground was injured by falling parts of the shuttle because the area is sparsely populated, she says.

"There were parts of the shuttle that were embedded in the soil, that hit with such an impact they left little craters," she says. "Had this hit someplace where there were cars or children playing or people laughing, there would have been a horrific loss of life."

Sabine County Judge Jack Leath, a member of the memorial planning committee, says graduate architect students from Texas A&M University are working on a design. The black box data recorder that provided clues about the last minutes of the flight was also found in Hemphill.

"This is where the mission ended for those astronauts," he says. "The memorial committee sort of has a slogan: 'Their mission became our mission.'"

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
UMNS photo courtesy NASA

Crew members strike a �flying� pose for their traditional in-flight crew portrait aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

Crenshaw sees the experience as "the Lord's redemption" because something tragic was turned into something that pulled a community together.

"We don't want our country to forget," she says. "Sometimes we take things for granted. I think the shuttle falling apart means we won't take it for granted the next time people risk their lives."

Morgan says he and his neighbors are working to bring closure to the astronauts' families.

"Honoring life is what the community did," he says. "Those who walked the lines or got up early in the morning to cook breakfast for the hundreds of searchers developed a special bond."

His faith gave him strength during those days.

"It took a request of the Lord to give me the strength. You had to rely on your faith almost constantly.

"Personally, I wasn't looking for parts of a crashed aircraft. I was looking for human remains of heroes."

United Methodist News Service writer Kathy Gilbert wrote this report with information provided by UMTV freelance producer John Gordon in Texas.  News media can contact Gilbert at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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