Monday, September 8, 2014

Civil Air Patrol Aerospace Educator wins # 1 in the Nation

Current National Commander Major General
Joseph R. Vasquez and former National
Commander Major General Charles Carr, Jr.,
presented the Major General Jeanne Holm Aerospace
Education Officer of the Year Award to
Lt. Col. Kathy Beauford.
Las Vegas, NV – Lt. Col. Kathy Beauford has won the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Major General Jeanne Holm Aerospace Education Officer of the Year award, naming her the #1 aerospace educator in the nation.  Lt. Col. Beauford has been the state Director of External Aerospace Education for 26 years. The prestigious award was presented to Beauford at the Civil Air Patrol National Board convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Presenting the award to Col. Beauford were current National Commander Major General Joseph R. Vasquez and former National Commander Major General Charles Carr, Jr.
The award narrative read during the presentation reads:
 “Lt Col Beauford may be retired from her career as a teacher, but her passion for aerospace continues to burn. She has been a CAP member for 26 years and is Director of External Aerospace Education and Robotics Project Manager, and an Observer-Scanner-Airborne Photographer. Every year she adds new projects to her aerospace education activities. This year she is consulting with a national Edu-tainment corporation to design and decorate its fixed-base Edu-tainment Center and is using the new Next Generation National Standards to develop curricula for inflatable classrooms of space shuttle, space station, Hubble Space Telescope, and earth sciences submarine. She personally has endowed the Gertrude Beauford Memorial Scholarship to send Louisiana Wing cadets to Space Camp Academy, Aviation Challenge, or Robotics Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Besides the time she has spent on writing curricula, she has developed various AE brochures and media presentations. Lt Col Beauford’s external AE activities in the past 2 ½ years have reached  7,812 students, teachers and adults at such Louisiana venues as Louisiana Wing Academy in Lafayette,  Wing Conference in Alexandria, Highland Road Observatory in Baton Rouge, Laser Interferometry Gravity Observatory in Livingston, Sally Ride Science Festival in Baton Rouge and numerous schools, facilities, conventions and events throughout the state. Promoting CAP at every turn, she has also fashioned 14 standing exhibits and mounted 31 aerospace education posters. As Public Affairs Officer, she has had 76 articles published in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet in the past 2 ½ years to promote CAP aerospace education and emergency services. She is the co-author of A Teacher’s Companion to the Space Station: A Multi-disciplinary Resource which will soon enjoy its third printing thanks to grants from Lockheed Martin Space Systems.  Col. Beauford is also a Solar System Ambassador,  having been appointed by the NASA Solar System Ambassador Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a guest lecturer position. She has placed CAP’s name on the Mars Rover  “Curiosity,”  the MAVEN Mars Orbiting Observatory, and the OSIRIS-REX comet sample return spacecraft, so CAP is literally “Out of This World!.” Col Beauford’s motto is “America needs SPACE to GROW!” and “I need my SPACE!”

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with 60,000 members nationwide, operating a fleet of 550 aircraft. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs about 85 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and is credited by the AFRCC with saving an average of 70 lives annually. Its unpaid professionals also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to more than 25,000 young people currently participating in the CAP cadet programs. Performing missions for America for over 70 years, CAP will soon receive the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the heroic efforts of its World War II veterans. CAP also participates in Wreaths Across America, an initiative to remember, honor and teach about the sacrifices of U.S. military veterans. Visit www.gocivilairpatrol.com, www.capvolunteernow.com and www.capgoldmedal.com for more information.

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