‘I’m just so grateful to be a part of this’: Benjamin Victor, renowned sculptor, leans on personal connections to honor Christa McAuliffe

The call caught Barbara Morgan by surprise.

It was Benjamin Victor, a close friend and colleague who she’d worked with at Boise State University. He wanted to let her know that he’d been chosen to design and build the sculpture dedicated to Christa McAuliffe on the front lawn of the New Hampshire State House.

She’d served as the backup “teacher in space” for McAuliffe on the Space Shuttle Challenger mission.

When Morgan heard from Victor, she could hardly contain her joy. The dual reasons for elation – that someone she knows so well would have the opportunity to build a statue of someone who was a dear friend – only choked her up.

“I hope you can see my enormous smile,” she said in a phone interview.

Victor stood out among the other artists to the members of the commission overseeing the project. He has the credentials as the youngest artist to have a sculpture placed in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall and the only living sculptor with three sculptures displayed there. But he also has a connection to McAuliffe, both through Morgan and as the son of two teachers himself, which makes his selection for the memorial more meaningful.

“That’s the triumph behind all of this tragedy, that her legacy really has carried on,” said Victor, who visited Concord this week to meet with the Christa McAuliffe memorial commission and iron out the details for the monument. “Even though we lost her, her legacy will never die, and especially here. You can just see it and feel it. I love being here now, and I’m just so grateful to be a part of this.”

The monument and statue in her honor is scheduled to be completed by what would’ve been McAuliffe’s 76th birthday on Sept. 2, 2024.

‘It could’ve been my mom’

That day is forever etched in Victor’s memory: Jan. 28, 1986.

It was supposed to be a day of inspiration and hope for the 7-year-old second-grade student in Porterville, California and kids all across America. Instead, when the shuttle exploded in front of so many eager eyeballs, Victor remembered a hollowing feeling. Disbelief.

McAuliffe had been a bigger inspiration to him than most. His parents, Jeff and Joyce Victor, were both teachers.

“It could’ve been my mom,” Victor said. “Like, ‘Wow, this teacher is going to go up to space.’ ”

McAuliffe, with her smile and optimism, caught the attention of the nation.

“She was so magnetic and personable that even through the camera on the news or on TV, you felt like you knew her,” Victor said. “She just had that sparkle in her eyes and that kindness that she communicated so well to everybody that all of us felt like we knew her personally. It was part of us that this teacher, this person, this citizen was going to get to go into space.”

Now 37 years later, Victor is about to embark on one of the most emotionally charged projects he’s taken on in his career as a sculptor. He’s designed statues of Alexander Hamilton and Rosie the Riveter and Chief Standing Bear. All of them hold special meaning to him, but none will likely have this level of personal connection.

He’s watched documentaries about McAuliffe and heard dozens of stories about her, especially from Morgan. He’s become enamored with her authenticity, truly an “everyday person” who had this magnetic persona.

“More than anybody I’ve ever studied, Christa was able to put 100% of herself out there on camera, at least that’s the way it seemed to me from what people tell me about her that knew her in person,” Victor said. “That’s really, really special, and I think that’s why it became this national phenomenon.”

‘Captures their imagination’

Morgan came to know McAuliffe as well as anybody. After the disaster, she left her job as a teacher in McCall, Idaho and became a full-time astronaut, subsequently spending 13 days in space.

The vibrancy of McAuliffe’s personality still sticks with her.

As renderings of the memorial are finalized, Victor’s honing in on that personality and how it served as an inspiration for so many Americans.

“That statement of ‘reach for the stars’ and the idea that every child, no matter what their background is, should be able to reach for the stars and should be able to dream big, I just love that,” he said. “That’s what made her such an inspirational person. You can dream big, you can do great things and you can maybe go further than you think if you have that mentality. That’s the idea behind the sculpture.”

Victor, who is known for his realistic sculpting style, submitted a preliminary design to the commission.

“I want her to be shown in motion, striding forward with that smile, that magnetic smile that she had, so that the sculpture is engaging to the people that view it, and when the children come up to it, they can see her as the real person that she was. Her eyes meet with theirs, and it captures their imagination as kids because we have some future teachers, future astronauts, future leaders that are going to view this sculpture when they’re in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, all the way up. That’s really, really important to me that that is her legacy, inspiring those next generations and that that’s going to be continued on with the work of art.”

And of all of her accomplishments that will be part of the memorial – teacher, astronaut, role model – there’s one thing that Morgan hopes people will feel most connected with.

“Look for the twinkle in Christa’s eye,” she said.