Yes!!
Set up an array for each column---let's say "this" and "that". On the first pass, you'll assign values to "this[1]" and "that[1]".
a straightforward way to assign variables based on columns is with AWK---eg:
varname = awk '{print $1}' filename
So, you might have something like this (some is pseudo-code, not tested):
Code:
n=1
while read line; do
var1 [n] = $(echo $line | awk '{print $1}')
var2 [n] = $(echo $line | awk '{print $2}')
increment n
done
printf to print var1 and var2 in desired format