Nebraska Native is Astronaut With a Mission

By John Ferak, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Jun. 8–ASHLAND, Neb. — Clayton Anderson had his share of second- and third-place finishes as he grew up in this small town between Omaha and Lincoln.

When he was a youngster, his mother dressed him in a tinfoil-wrapped box for Ashland’s Stir-Up Days parade. The imaginative astronaut costume drew plenty of chuckles.

“Everyone in the crowd thought he should have won, but the judges only gave him second place,” said his mother, Alice Anderson, a retired speech therapy teacher.

As a teenager, Clay Anderson excelled in track, football and basketball at Ashland-Greenwood High School in the 1970s. He played in the band. He performed in school musicals and dramas.

“Clay was the model student,” said classmate Allison Gilmore, now a military science history professor at Ohio State University. “He was my swing choir partner in music.”

Two other seniors earned higher grade-point averages than Anderson, which meant at commencement in 1977, he was not valedictorian or salutatorian.

Today, Anderson will soar higher than anyone else in his class ever fathomed. He will become the first native Nebraskan to travel into outer space.

Lifting off on space shuttle Atlantis, which will attain speeds exceeding 17,000 mph, Anderson expects to travel with a handful of good luck charms from his Nebraska hometown.

The high school gave its prized alumnus a few track medals and a pennant as mementos for his four-month journey aboard the International Space Station.

Anderson also plans to travel with a keepsake ballpoint pen — a graduation present from Bob and Shirley Simpson. The late Bob Simpson coached Anderson in football and taught him in science class.

Shirley Simpson and Craig Pease, Ashland-Greenwood superintendent, plan to join Alice Anderson and other relatives to witness today’s scheduled launch in Florida.

“In my 27 years in the school district,” Pease said, “I have been pretty proud of some of our graduates, and certainly Clay Anderson has got to be at the top of that list.”

Anderson visited Ashland in March to speak to seventh- and eighth-graders about his life as an astronaut and the coursework that served as the foundation for his career.

“After he graduated college, Clay could have walked away from Ashland, but that’s not Clay,” said Mary Bohn, a lifelong friend and fellow 1977 graduate.

“He knows where his roots are,” she said. “His parents did a fabulous job making him believe he can do anything. Because of that, he has given back. He is one of ours, and one of everybody’s, in Nebraska.”

Anderson’s interest in space began when he was 9. His mother recalled waking her three children on Christmas Eve 1968 to watch television coverage of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the moon.

On another Christmas, Santa Claus dropped off a Sears-brand telescope for young Anderson.

“The telescope was a pretty significant present,” his mother said. “I remember he loved that telescope, and he used it a lot.”

Classmates remember Anderson as the boy who played hide-and-seek and kick-the-can in the neighborhood. Or as the talented musician who played organ and piano at Sunday worship services at First Christian Church. Or the dedicated summer lifeguard and youth baseball umpire.

Anderson also is remembered for asking girls to do the Jitterbug at school dances — especially the shy and nervous ones who stood along the gym walls without a swing partner.

“The thing I remember most was that Clay was always nice, and I remember thinking that was really a big deal,” said Theresa Deleski Reim, a 1977 graduate who owns a hair salon in Ashland.

As a senior, Anderson made all-conference in football and basketball. He qualified in the long jump for the state track meet.

A trumpet player, he won his school’s John Philip Sousa Award for the outstanding senior member of the band.

“Clay was a great leader and a great athlete,” said Chuck Niemeyer, Anderson’s high school biology teacher. “There weren’t any negatives about Clay. That’s probably why he’s where he’s at today.”

After graduating from college and completing graduate school, Anderson went to work full time for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Five years ago, he returned to Ashland for his 25th high school reunion. He told classmates interesting tales about his unorthodox training missions as one of about 100 American astronauts.

“I never ever questioned his ability to make it into space. It’s just been a matter of time,” said Bohn, now senior vice president at an Ashland bank. “We’re so proud of him. So many people just have these goals and they are never able to achieve them, and he did it. It’s amazing.”

Bohn plans to watch today’s liftoff from KC’s East Side Saloon in Ashland. About 30 of Anderson’s former classmates expect to be there.

Their mission: to raise their glasses high in a toast as their fellow graduate lifts off.

“I will always remember Friday as Clay’s launch,” Bohn said. “I would hope the whole state of Nebraska will feel the same way. It’s a big deal.”

Anderson’s preflight interview with NASA

On growing up in Ashland “It was very family-oriented, and it was a great place to grow up. A great place to learn and become who I am. I wouldn’t have been who I am without those folks.”

How he ended up at Johnson Space Center in Houston On a pheasant hunt in Nebraska, a Hastings College graduate who worked at NASA had a conversation with Anderson’s college guidance counselor about the NASA internship program. Anderson applied and was accepted.

On flying into space for first time “The fact that I risk my life is important, but to me, it’s secondary. I do this because I love it, but I know there’s a huge payback down the road for all the people on Earth. If we go and figure out how to take people to Mars and back, the technological developments will be enormous, and it will pay back to everybody on the planet.”

On his long career at NASA “I knew that the odds were so tremendously stacked against me becoming an astronaut that my main goal was to come to NASA and work with folks like the astronauts, like the engineers. I was in love with the space program, so I wanted to work for NASA.”

Plans during stay aboard the International Space Station “I like to write music, and I’m going to try to write a song. . . . The other thing I’d like to do is, there’s a guitar on board and I’ve always wanted to learn to play guitar, and hopefully I’ll have enough time. . . . There’s software on our computers that will try to guide me through the learning process to learn how to play the guitar.”

Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

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