Lake City vigil to honor astronaut Ronald McNair

Across the nation people will take a moment Thursday to remember seven individuals – two women and five men - whose lives were cut short by a disaster witnessed globally 30 years ago; the explosion of space shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after take-off.

Among those seven was one “soft spoken and always smiling” Dr. Ronald E. McNair. His fellow crew members were Teacher-in-Space payload specialist Sharon Christa McAuliffe; payload specialist Gregory Jarvis; astronauts Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist; Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, mission commander; Mike J. Smith, pilot; and Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist.

“Soft spoken and smiling.” That’s how Gloria Tisdale remembers McNair. “A really nice guy, always smiling, always having fun, smart,” who was “joined at the hip” with his brother, Carl McNair; “A really likable person, down-to-earth,” she said.

Tisdale was two years behind McNair at their school in Lake City, a school now named for McNair.

Now president of the Ron McNair Committee, Tisdale helps ensure that the legacy of a down-to-earth man who dreamed of the stars continues to encourage others to pursue their own dreams. As part of that goal, the committee will host the annual candlelight vigil tonight at the Ronald McNair Memorial Park in Lake City in observance of the 30th anniversary of his death.

She remembers the Challenger explosion.

“It was really like everybody was stunned” in Lake City, she said. While many from the city had traveled to the space coast to watch the shuttle launch, Tisdale was working in the school district’s offices when she heard the news.

“You can ask people where they were when Martin Luther King was killed or John F. Kennedy and it’s kind of like that; everybody knows exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time it exploded,” said Tisdale. “We were mostly in disbelief that it actually happened.”

Tisdale said the Ron McNair Committee was established before the shuttle mission. It was established to celebrate not his death, but his life and achievements, and his first trip to space in 1984.

“Ronald came into town for a few days and we had a parade. He visited some of the schools, and we had a banquet,” said Tisdale. “It was the entire town involved in that ... we all got together as a community to welcome him and celebrate his trip into space.”

“He came back to Lake City talking to the children about living their dreams and their accomplishments. That’s one of the things the committee wanted done, for him to be visible to the children here in Lake City so they could see that they too could succeed in whatever they dreamed,” said Tisdale.

That legacy continues to be told through the committee’s efforts at the Dr. Ronald E. McNair Life History Center adjacent to the memorial Park, educational programs in Florence County School District Three, and annual programs such as today's vigil, which will begin at 6 p.m.

This year, the committee will also host a 30th anniversary commemorative banquet at the Bean Market on Henry Street with McNair’s daughter, Joy C. McNair, a Texas-based attorney, as guest speaker. Proceeds from the banquet will provide supportive resources for the McNair Scholarship program that provides scholarships for Lake City High School students.

Other events commemorating the 30th anniversary today include a memorial program at the astronaut’s alma mater, North Carolina A&T State University, and a NASA Day of Remembrance tribute to the Challenger crew, as well as those of Apollo 1 and space shuttle Columbia, and other NASA colleagues, that includes an observance and wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

In addition, at 10 a.m., NASA Television will provide live coverage of a wreath-laying ceremony at the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, and employees at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will hold a candle-lighting ceremony as well as a public event at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

For more information on the Ron McNair Committee or banquet, contact Tisdale at 843-230-5264 or by e-mail at ggtis331@aol.com.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 10:11 PM with the headline "Lake City vigil to honor astronaut Ronald McNair."