Five hundred students in Manhattan, Kan., got the opportunity to ask Dr. June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger shuttle commander Dick Scobee, questions about her life and work during a teleconference Friday afternoon at UTC’s Challenger Center.
The students recently held a multidisciplinary performance memorializing the Challenger crew and got the opportunity to hear from Rodgers herself when she found out about the event.
The performance is “a score of original lyrics, music and script that honors the seven astronauts lost during the mission and tells the story of how the Challenger inspired the space program to continue to pursue exploration despite tragedy,” according to a news release.
Rodgers, who also is the founding chairwoman of the Challenger Centers, addressed a monitor in the lobby of the UTC building which showed the hundreds of students gathered in their schools.
She fielded questions from individual students and encouraged them to use their education to become tomorrow’s innovators, just as the crewmembers desperately wanted.