By Amy MullisOn Saturday, May 30, 2020, when the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA astronauts and Crew Dragon members Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley took the signatures of five Dodge County High School (DCHS) alumnae along for the flight.
During the 2017-2018 school year, students in Ashley Jones Food Science class, as a part of the school’s NASA HUNCH program, competed in several rounds of culinary competition in their classes before a final team earned the honor of competing at the regional contest in Alabama and then advanced to the national competition at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
In Houston, the team, including Mary Hess, Marissa Hullender, Sarah Lee, Faith McDade and Michaela Mullis, prepared and served their space-ready breakfast meal for a live panel of judges and placed in the Top Ten against teams from all across the nation.
DCHS Principal Pam Melvin, who was assistant principal and CTAE director at the time, says it was an incredible experience.
“It was a sight to see all of the students working together so that they could play a part in feeding our astronauts on a space station,” she said. “You can’t understand the magnitude of it without being there to see it. Our small town was represented well with Mrs. Jones and her students.”
It was during their time in Houston that the girls and their chaperones, Jones, Melvin, then DCHS Principal Dr. Susan Long, CTAE instructor Kathy Lewis and Charles Williams, toured the Space Center and signed flight-ready stowage lockers (SSLs) made by NASA HUNCH students from around the United States.
It was on those transport boxes that the Dodge County team’s names made it into space.
“The most recent SpaceX astronauts were sitting on these very boxes as they made their way to and returned from the International Space Station (ISS),” said Williams, executive director of the Dodge County-Eastman Development Authority.
Hess, who was a senior the year the team went to Houston, reflected fondly on her experience with the HUNCH program and was excited to hear the news of the teams’ signatures taking flight.
Continue reading "Dodge students names go to space"