The quiet east Texas town of Nacogdoches is usually far from the television cameras of the national media.
But last week Nacogdoches found itself in the public eye when over 2,500 pieces of debris from the shuttle fell on the town of 29,000-plus residents.
Bill Elliott, president of the Nacogdoches-based Elliott Electric, has been keeping tabs on the recovery efforts since the space shuttle Columbia broke apart last Saturday morning.
The media swooped in on downtown Nacogdoches to conduct interviews after falling debris blew open the doors of a bank and pieces of the shuttle fell throughout the area. Elliott said he and his employees have not found any objects from the space shuttle on the company's three properties in the town or on any of their individual properties.
While much of the media interest in Nacogdoches has subsided since the disaster, Elliott has seen an outpouring of support from the community. At press time, volunteers from the fire department and other groups were guarding the fallen debris until federal authorities could collect the objects and take them to Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force base.