1997

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR "TAMAKWA-NAUT" JERRY LINENGER

As we go to press, Jerry Linenger is making history. We have checked our files, and we believe he is the first Tamakwan ever to walk in space. (That is, if you don't count Matt Weinberg's cannonball dive off the swim tower in '86.) It so happens Jerry is also the first American to not only take part in a joint U.S.-Russian spacewalk, but to wear a Russian space suit as well. It happened on day 104 of his four month mission on board Russian space station MIR.

It was in 1978 that the Detroit native took time off as a Wayne State University medical student to work at Tamakwa. Now he is U.S. Navy Cmdr. Dr. Jerry Linenger, and his first mission with NASA was a 10 day orbit aboard space shuttle "Discovery" in September '94. Back then he reminisced about nights on South Tea Lake, "lying in a canoe, looking up at a billion stars in the sky, dreaming of space." See where lying in a canoe can lead to?

How How Jerry!! We're all very proud of you. We'd say "Skip around the room", or should that be "Skip around the earth..."? (Wonder if while he's up there, he can turn up the dimmer on the Northern Lights.)