Dwight was a Virginia resident and life-long NASA advocate. He attended 18 shuttle launches, driving most of the night from Virginia. He was a model rocketeer and handmade an 8 foot shuttle for launch. He made painstaking hour-long animated movies of space flight! A humble person, working as a maintenance supervisor and art framer, Dwight dedicated his life to space and manned space flight! He had a 17 inch telescope in his backyard. He promoted the shuttle program to everyone he knew. You did not visit Dwight in northern Virginia without visiting the Space Museum or more recently the Udvar center. Dwight was truly the common man's representative for the manned space program.
In May of 2005, we sent e-mails out to congresspersons in Virginia with the above description of Dwight. We received a reply from Daniel Scandling, Chief of Staff for Congressman Frank Wolf, indicating that he had reached out to NASA. In June, Mr Scandling e-mailed that we would be hearing from NASA. A few days later we got a call from Kathleen Ausley, of NASA. She said that NASA had put together a tribute to Dwight. We agreed that we would get together for a small lunch in Manassas, Virginia when the family traveled there on Dwight's birthday.
On September 30th we
had a lovely lunch for Dwight, at Milano's in Centreville. Present were Ed,
Roberta, Louise, her son Paul Jr, her daughter Kristi and her husband Jeff, Dick
Turner, George (Dwight's supervisor), Michael Sullivan (Dwight's long time
friend), and Stacey Brooks, the representative from NASA. We had a large private
room to ourselves. We set up a sample of Dwight's paintings, his Bounty shuttle,
and a TV. After a pleasant lunch, we all watched Dwight's "History of the Rocket
Launch Program” a video compilation that Dwight created to document his long
“career” in model rocketry. Stacey presented us with a 24" x 18" mounted poster
that was dedicated to STS-107, and the lost crew of Columbia. In the center
there is a dedication to Dwight for his lifetime support of the program.
After lunch Ed, Roberta, Louise, Paul Jr, Kristi, Jeff, and Sully all went up to
the UDVAR-HAZY Flight Museum for a walk around. It was tough being there without
Dwight.
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