Georgianne

Long-time listener, first-time caller.

Hi.

I'm so excited. I'm great.

I am in Terrell, Texas, which is about 30 miles east of Dallas. It's hometown of Jamie Foxx. Oh, nice.

Yeah, it's great.

The story takes place in Friendswood, Texas, which is kind of down the Houston area, right in the shadow of Johnson Space Center. And when I was nine years old in fourth grade, I could not decide if I wanted to be an astronaut or a teacher. Then the most amazing thing happened. My teacher, Peggy Lathlane, was named one of the finalists for NASA's Teacher in Space program. Oh, wow. So cool.

She had, I'm assuming a sabbatical. I don't know. She didn't like clear it with the nine-year-olds, what was happening with her release time, but she wasn't there. She would come back and give us updates on the training that she was doing with the space program. And we had little experiments that we got to design that the teacher in space was going to take up on the challenger.

So of course we were so sad that she wasn't selected to be the teacher in space.

Yes. So January 28th, 1986, I will never forget, Ms. Cheever came in the classroom and told us to... come to the carpet. We knew, of course, that Ms. Laughlin hadn't been selected, but we were excited because we were told that our experiment was still going on board the shuttle and that Krista McAuliffe was going to come to our school and share all of the findings from our experiment.

I'll never forget sitting on the carpet and watching her chin quiver as she told us what had happened, that the Challenger had been lost.

No, because our principal, it was such a big deal for our school and our community that she had this foreboding feeling like if something terrible happened, she didn't want us all watching this collective traumatic experience. I was devastated, as were so many of our class, sad for our teacher and for those families.

And then for me, too, I'd been so excited that I don't have to choose between being an astronaut and a teacher. I can do both like Miss Laughlin. And a little part of that dream died for me that day. So by the time I got home from school, I was nearly inconsolable. And my mom owned a flower shop and we lived in an apartment above the flower shop. I'm just sobbing by the time I get off the bus.

And she says, I want you to go upstairs, just take a breath, get a snack. It's going to be okay. About an hour, hour and a half later, I come bouncing down the stairs and she's like, Georgianne, you seem so much better. I'm like, why am I called NASA? And she's like, you did what? I said,

Yeah, I called NASA and I talked to my teacher and she told me she was okay and that I'm okay and I feel better. I remember very vividly marching up the little stairs. I pulled out the yellow pages from under our counter. So Monica, other young people, it was this big book of phone numbers.

I looked up the number for Johnson Space Center and called. The operator there connected me to Cape Canaveral, where my teacher was to watch the launch in Florida. So when my mom tells the story to this day, I am the hero of the story. Can you believe me? She was nine years old and called NASA.

But really, as I have reflected on that so many times in my life, and I tell the story often in different contexts, is that really the hero of that story was an operator. She was the operator on the worst day. Can you imagine what NASA was like that day? The calls that were coming in, the devastation, the grief, the hurt. And a stranger, she didn't know me, but heard this sad story.

scared little girl. She could have easily said, honey, your teacher's in Florida. She's busy. I can't find them. Bless your heart. But she took the time to connect me to Cape Canaveral to find someone there who went to track down my teacher and connect that call to a private place. And I really remember Ms. Laughlin saying, I'm okay. And you're okay. And it's all going to be okay.

There's just a lot of times in my life and in the work that I do that I tell that story with just the reminder that acts of kindness that we get to perform to people we know and don't know is what is going to make the world be okay.

And a domino effect. Yes.

An unsung hero. I never was able to track her down and find her. But if she happened to be listening, thank you. Because she made a difference like all these years later.

It's like the defining moment of my childhood. One of those, you know where you were. Wow.

Yeah, thanks for sharing it. Thank y'all for giving me the chance to. We have some of the biggest armchairs in our house. Can I get them in?

So my husband, Matt, and then this is our biggest fan here. This is Mitchell. He is our college kiddo. He just finished a final. Congratulations.

A little brother and I grew up absolute fans of Zathura.

He just finished a final and he was like, if I have to fail the final, it's this.

Thank you. It was a joy.