Students Pay More Lasting Tributes to Astronauts

At Van Nuys High School, 105 nervous students lined up Wednesday to give blood. At Sharp Avenue School in Pacoima, the finishing touches were going on a new science center. And at Dearborn Street School in Northridge, an annual American history program was begun with a dedication.

The events at the three San Fernando Valley schools were tributes to the crew of the space shuttle Challenger that exploded last month, killing the seven astronauts aboard. They were evidence that, well after the initial wave of mourning, the lowered flags and moments of silence, the tragedy continues to have a deep impact on students.

“When it happened, the students went along with the perfunctory ceremonies” but they didn’t feel that was enough, said Van Nuys High teacher Robert Livingston. As student council sponsor, he supervised the blood drive.

“We wanted to acknowledge what took place, but also to reaffirm life.”

Livingston had hoped to get 73 donors, equal to the number of seconds the Challenger was in the air, he said. But 105 students gave blood, twice as many as during a blood drive last year. The blood was donated to the Red Cross in the names of the shuttle crew members, and scrolls with the names of the donors will be sent to each of the astronauts’ families.

Holds Her Hand

Roxie Casey, 17, a cheerleader and student council member, said she fainted while giving blood last year but came back this year because of the cause. She asked a friend to hold her hand while she waited for the needle to go into her arm.

Another student, Chris Kim, 17, said of the shuttle disaster: “It is the same as losing your mom or dad.”

At Sharp Avenue School, the new outdoor science lab is being named McAuliffe Science Center after teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, who was on the shuttle Jan. 28. Work on the center had been under way for several months, but students decided on the name last week, Assistant Principal Yvonne Chan said.

Students are building a model of the Challenger to go in the science lab, which will be dedicated March 6, Chan said. A sign outside the center will have red, white and blue letters reading “McAuliffe Science Center, Come Touch Tomorrow.”

“It is a sad thing. We grieve her, but the future must go on,” Chan said.

Dearborn Street School’s “American Musicale” program Wednesday was dedicated to the memory of the Challenger crew at the suggestion of several students, Principal Harold Kuhn said.

A class of fourth-graders performed a square dance and sang “America the Beautiful.” One of the performers, Jennifer Clark, 9, of Northridge, said her father knew Ellison Onizuka, one of the Challenger crew members.

In a speech during the program, fourth-grader Stephanie Wolfe said: “America has always had women and men as strong and as great as she is, from the Pilgrims to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle.”

Many of the students said they knew very little about the space program. But it was enough, as Stephanie said, that “seven people went up and one was a teacher, and they died.”

“It makes me sad.”