Stephen F. Austin State University

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The creation of a museum at the Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center commemorating the Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew will begin with a reception for recovery workers and the East Texas residents who assisted them from 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 1 in the Fredonia Hotel Rusk Room, 200 N. Fredonia St. The reunion marks four years since the Columbia tragedy.

According to Dr. James Kroll, director of the center, the reunion is open to residents of any county along the recovery corridor and will serve two purposes.

"In addition to bringing together the citizens who assisted in the recovery effort, we want to start the process of collecting oral histories from them for the Columbia Memorial Museum, before the memories of the event become too dim," Kroll said. "We'd like to hear from anyone who was a part of the recovery or who feels some emotional or physical tie to it."

Kroll said the oral histories will be videotaped and eventually made available through a virtual museum on the center's Web site.

The museum also is accepting donations or loans of space-related artifacts or memorabilia. Dr. Morris Jackson of Nacogdoches has donated his collection of memorabilia to the museum, which now includes a tire used on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, a NASA-created replica of a portion of the Columbia tailpiece, and a photograph taken from space during Columbia's final mission.

Kroll plans to open the museum to the public in fall 2007, depending on the availability of funding.

For more information about the reception or museum, call (936) 468-6100.