Her reach travels far, like a ship through space, touching children 30 years after her death.
That’s why 11-year-old Cameron Christopher has visited Christa McAuliffe’s Concord grave site. It’s why she wrote a report last month on McAuliffe for her class at Maple Street School in Hopkinton, and why she reads books on female leaders and role models.
It’s also why her father, 1986 Concord High graduate Marshall Greene of Franklin, will join others here this weekend, forming the core of a fundraising event that will try to strengthen the cash-hungry science center bearing McAuliffe’s name.
“My daughter is really into reading and writing,” said Greene, who builds houses for a living. “She did that report on Christa and it’s really impressive, really nice seeing it come full circle like this. She’s still inspiring kids and she’s still inspiring my kid.”
McAuliffe, who was killed when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, taught, inspired and cared about students in a way that touched them deeply. She was trying to become the “first ordinary citizen in space,” as NASA called her.
Instead, she reminded us how dangerous space flight could be, while also filling the role she sought, that of a pioneer who could teach students things that extended far beyond the classroom.
After her death, the state chose to fund the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in 1990, a fitting tribute to a woman who became a national story even in the months leading up to the launch. The facility’s name was changed to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center to honor Alan Shepard of Derry, the first American to fly in space, in 1961.
Budget cuts, though, changed everything in 2012, turning the center into a nonprofit that needed private and corporate donations, not to mention fund raisers to keep its exhibits flying.
Enter dozens of Concord High graduates from the Class of ‘86, the backbone behind this weekend’s two-day event.
They’re as passionate about helping the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center as McAuliffe was about teaching. They hope you’ll come to the center Saturday between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. and buy a raffle ticket.
Their 30th reunion will be held Saturday night, starting at 8 p.m. at the Grappone Convention Center. They hope you’ll buy a $40 ticket if you’re part of that class.
Then comes the potluck picnic Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at Elm Brook Park in Hopkinton, for all Concord High alumni. Raffle tickets for that are $5 each, three for $10, six for $20.
The brains behind this is a woman named Joanne Walton, who was supposed to have McAuliffe as a teacher in 1986 before tragedy struck. She’s head of the reunion committee, coordinating these events each five years.
It seemed like a good idea to surround the 2016 reunion with McAuliffe’s name, being the 30th anniversary of the disaster and with the center hurting so badly.
“I saw an article that the state was not funding the center any longer and I shared it with classmates,” Walton said by phone from Virginia, where she lives and once worked as a teacher. “There was a feeling that we wanted to keep honoring her and remembering her so people would realize the sacrifice they made, and we did not want the center to be in jeopardy.
“We like to try to do those types of things to give back to Concord, and this time that was an opportunity that jumped out at us. We’re trying to get more people to be aware of it and go visit it.”
Walton spread the word through social media and her former classmates responded. They were not hesitant to reveal their feelings about resources no longer available for this educational institution, one inspired by one of the city’s treasures.
Duane Drew of Concord is a substance abuse counselor who was a student at Concord High when the Challenger exploded. He worked on the Teens Need Teens group, providing a shoulder for fellow students to lean on, setting up shop in the library, where flowers from around the city, state, country and world were brought to honor McAuliffe.
“I don’t think the budget should be cut,” Drew said. “Science is crippled in this country and we should move forward. We just put an orbiter around Jupiter. We’re constantly finding new things, still looking at Mars, and it all starts with children having that dream.”
Cindy Edson of Hanover is a former math teacher who’s now a high school guidance counselor. McAuliffe led her down an educational career path, she said.
She thinks institutions like the one McAuliffe inspired are vital, saying, “It’s so unfortunate to hear about the funding problem, so we’re hoping we can at least help out a little bit. It’s an educational place, and funding should help with that and it should be continuous.”
Which brings us back to Marshall Greene and his 11-year-old daughter, Cameron Christopher. She’s a straight ‘A’ student, Greene said, who reads books like I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban.
It’s a memoir written by Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate who spoke out against the Taliban so girls in Pakistan could go to school.
Christopher’s love for writing like this, as well as her admiration for women with noble goals, was inspired by the woman whose name and image are attached to something out of this world.
“Christa gave me hope for my daughter,” Greene said, “that she could always reach for the stars.”