“The Day the Sky Stopped Us All”

I still remember exactly where I was on Tuesday, January 28, 1986 — the day the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I was in 8th grade, out of school for a snow day. My friends and I had been running wild in a hay barn all morning, laughing and chasing each other across the top tier until I face-planted into a hay bale. We came inside to warm up and check the damage — cheeks red and scraped up, noses running, hearts still racing from play.

Then the news came on. The shuttle launch filled the screen, and in a now frozen moment in time, everything changed. I told the others to be quiet…I really didn’t know why, but something in me knew this was important, that we were watching history unfold, and not the kind that anyone celebrates.

It was the first time I remember the world stopping. A moment that shifted how I saw life…fragile, unpredictable, and sometimes painful. Even as kids in a Kentucky barn, we felt it…at least I know I did! What a day.