It was five years ago today when the airplane carrying Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, two campaign staffers and the two pilots, crashed near Eveleth Minnesota. It's one of the few moments in my life I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.

I was still in College at the University of Nebraska in my dorm room when my mother called. She, audibly upset, told me that the plane carrying Senator Wellstone has crashed.

It felt like a personal loss. On my desk laid my absentee ballot, with Paul's name on it.

I never got to meet the Senator, my mother had on a couple of occasions. She was always impressed that he always remembered her name, a trait many others had noticed in the Senator. Senator Wellstone was genuinely interested in the people he met and they made an impression upon him.