Shuttle launch has meaning for Texas town

AP Wire | 07/12/2005 | Shuttle launch has meaning for Texas town: "Few in this small East Texas town paid much attention to space flight until the crisp, foggy February morning when pieces from the space shuttle Columbia came raining down on them.

Now 2 1/2 years after the Columbia tragedy, many of the 1,100 residents consider those who work at NASA to be part of their close-knit community, and a few have gone to Florida to see the next shuttle launched.

They want Hemphill, which sits on the edge of the Sabine National Forest, to feel like a second home for the Columbia families. Within the next few years, residents want to have a trail leading to the site where they found the shuttle's 500-pound nose cone. They plan to memorialize each of the seven astronauts who died along the serene, wooded path."