Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

by Michael D. Leinbach

Pat Smith, an employee at the Shelby Savings Bank, appealed to her manager to help feed the searchers. They purchased several cases of fried chicken from the grocery store. As she and her manager drove up to the VFW hall to deliver their donation, they were astounded at the line of cars ahead of them and “little old ladies getting out with their peas, their dumplings, their corn bread, and their cakes. They’d just deliver it and drive on out.” Smith broke into tears when she saw firsthand the outpouring of support in the community. Third grade teacher Sunny Whittington felt guilty about not being able to help out in some significant way after hearing her students tell about their parents’ volunteering. As she drove to work, she stopped at the grocery store and purchased supplies for making sandwiches. Her teaching partner saw her unloading her truck at the school and asked what she was up to. “We’re going to make sandwiches!” she said. “School isn’t just about reading and writing and math. It’s about life.” Her colleague immediately offered to have her class help, and then called her husband to purchase more food. The children in the two classes made more than five hundred sandwiches that day.

We learned and recited the NTSB mantra: “Keep an open mind. Let the debris tell the story. Collect the debris, and the debris will tell you what happened.”