Christa McAuliffe | New England’s Gifts

Before Christa McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space aboard the Challenger, capturing the country’s hearts and imaginations, she was a popular social-studies teacher at Concord High School. When she became a hometown hero, a young reporter, Bob Hohler, was assigned to follow her journey for the Concord Monitor. He filed more than 50 stories about Christa, including the hardest one from January 28, 1986. Yankee’s story of the bond between the reporter and his subject included Hohler’s dispatch:

“Christa McAuliffe died yesterday with a few of her favorite things: her son’s stuffed frog, her daughter’s cross and chain, her grandmother’s watch, her Carly Simon tape. She died with little things. Ordinary things.

“Put her by a swimming pool with her family, a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, and a cold beer, and she needed little more from life. Give her a compass, her childhood friends, and a forest, and she flourished. Call her a hero, and she shuddered.

“In the 200 days I knew her, Christa went from a high school classroom to a spacecraft bound for an infinite frontier in the sky. She asked to be nothing more than an ordinary person on an extraordinary mission.

“How silly, she said on the day that I met her in Houston, that people would swarm her for autographs. How absolutely crazy, she said three weeks ago, that the New England Patriots would line up after a game for her signature. What a joy it would be, she imagined, to return to signing hall passes at the high school.”

“Christa’s Shadow” Yankee Magazine, June 1986.