msnbc news Wrote:NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The bronze medallion embedded in the pavement behind the Commercial Bank of Texas is easy to overlook. About the size of a DVD, it barely registers as a bump for the cars pulling up to use the bank's curbside service window.

But it is there — engraved with the name of the space shuttle Columbia and the date five years ago Friday that it exploded over the skies of East Texas.

The metal disc serves as a quiet tribute to the spot where a piece of the shuttle's wing crashed to Earth in downtown Nacogdoches, and the day this tranquil town of about 30,000 was catapulted into national consciousness.

It is that way all over Nacogdoches, which proudly bills itself as "The Oldest Town in Texas." Inside hotels, homes and offices — everywhere that pieces of STS-107 rained down from the heavens — reminders of that day remain. Some are tucked away meticulously in private memory; others displayed in public memorials.

Five years after Columbia disintegrated 63 kilometers over Texas as it returned from a 16-day mission, one thing is clear: The identity of this tight-knit community will be forever twinned with the fate of Columbia.

"It is something that is still a part of my life, and probably everybody else who had part in this particular mission. And I think it always be," said Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss, who helped lead the recovery efforts following the disaster. "Regardless of how long I live, I will always have a keen awareness of what wee had to go through, and the obstacles wee overcame to accomplish some of what wee did."

It was this town about 217 kilometers north of Houston lay directly under the shuttle's flight path, and so directly under the path of the debris scattered across hundreds of kilometers when Columbia exploded on Feb. 1, 2003, just 16 minutes from landing, killing all seven astronauts on board.

And it was this town that became the epicenter of the search for whatever was left of the shuttle. More than 85,000 pieces that still comprised only about 38 percent of the craft were eventually recovered.

In the first few hours after the explosion, no one knew what to expect.

Townspeople stood on the street staring at the piece of wing that dropped there and was quickly surrounded by armed National Guardsmen. More than 2,000 volunteers and searchers, including the Guard, U.S. Forest Service workers and NASA engineers, as well as reporters, television crews and photographers descended on Nacogdoches and its neighboring towns.

what am I supposed to say?

its a shame that town had to be shadowed by the fate of Space Shuttle Columbia..