I was in my final year of law school. As I recall, my crim pro prof (Michael Goldsmith) informed our class of the disaster. My wife's birthday is on 1/28. My birthday is on 7/20 -- another major date in space exploration (Apollo 11 lands on the moon, and Armstrong takes a "giant leap for mankind"). How's that for coincidence? Trivia -- most folks remember Armstrong and Aldrin, but who was the third member of the crew?

I wasn't going to join in, but the trivia challenge got me. Third astronaut (Command Module Pilot) was Michael Collins.

I was in the law offices of Freudenthal, Salzburg & Freudenthal in Cheyenne, Wyoming (Dave Freudenthal is now, I believe, the governor of Wyoming) doing witness prep while my colleagues were in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer trying the case ultimately reported as Big Horn Coal Co. v. Commonwealth Edison Co., 852 F.2d 1259 (10th Cir. 1988).

8th grade I was just going to my next class 3rd period and a group of students were running around telling everyone what happened. The rest of the day was spent watching news footage and talking about the incident and what we thought should be done. I remember thinking it was sad that it happened but that we should never give up our desire to go beyond what we have accomplished.