Hello SLASers, After my brief presentation last nite at SLAS about the search for Columbia debris in Southern Utah, I promised to let you know if we received any more information about the object in the Civil Air Patrol photo #102. Following is a quote from a message we received today, 26 Feb, from Dean Cox, Emergency Management Director for Washington County. QUOTE Yesterday at 15:00 MST I revisited the site located by the CAP. The coordinates put us within 125 feet of the object, however the search was hampered by 1 foot of fresh fallen snow. After studying the photo, I started kicking at the snow and on the second or third swath I hit PAYDAY! As my foot exposed a piece of lightweight chrome colored metal, I anxiously brushed the snow from the metal object with my gloved hand, which revealed an edge which was burned and blued from heat. My heart raced! Amidst congratulatory backslaps, Pete Kuhlmann wretched the piece from its icy enclave and we were astounded to see a piece of bumper from an old Ford Mercury, which had been cut by an Oxy-Acetylene torch, out in the middle of no-where! The ground searchers probably had located the piece but because of its Ford logo and obviousnes didn't even bother to call it in. It was a great GPS exercise anyway! END QUOTE Although we may be disappointed that no debris were found that were verified as belonging to Columbia, I hope you found the details of the search efforts interesting. I very much enjoyed all the presentations given last nite. David C. Buell Technical Support Specialist Utah Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Services and Homeland Security 1110 State Office Building PO Box 141710 Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-1710 Tel: 801-538-3632 FAX: 801-538-3772 E-mail: dbuell@utah.gov Web: http://des.utah.gov