David M. Brown
David McDowell Brown (April 16, 1956 – February 1, 2003) was a United States Navy captain and a NASA astronaut. He died on his first spaceflight, when the Space Shuttle "Columbia" (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, but had not served on a space mission prior to the "Columbia" disaster. Brown was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Brown, the 1986 recipient of the Navy Operational Flight Surgeon of the Year award, received numerous decorations including:
The symbol indicates a posthumous award.
Columbia County, Washington
Columbia County is one of the most conservative counties in Washington State. It has not been carried by a Democrat for President since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide victory, and the last time it backed a Democrat for Governor was as far back as 1936 when Clarence D. Martin swept every county in the state. Popular, conservative Democratic Senator "Scoop" Jackson did carry the county during four consecutive county sweeps (the last in 1982), but since then it has been powerfully Republican in those contests too.