Two MLHS 9th-graders win Space Camp trip
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Moses Lake High School freshmen Judah Vrieling and Celeste Todd both won a week at Space Camp in August courtesy of Mitsubishi Aircraft.
MOSES LAKE — Judah Vrieling didn’t really have any plans for the summer.
“I’m an introvert, I was going to stay at home and do introvert things,” said the Moses Lake High School ninth-grader, who is taking an engineering course or two at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.
However, thanks to Mitsubishi Aircraft, Vrieling — along with fellow ninth-grader Celeste Todd — will spend a week at Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., in early August.
“I was shocked,” Todd said. “It works out perfectly. My family is going to California, but this doesn’t start until after we get back.”
The two Moses Lake High School freshmen were selected Thursday morning from over 100 participants who entered the drawing during last month’s “Reach for the Stars With STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) event for Moses Lake ninth-graders at the Port of Moses Lake and Big Bend Community College.
All expenses are being paid by Mitsubishi as part of the company’s outreach to and investment in education and the future of Moses Lake, though Todd and Vrieling will have to get to Spokane Airport on their own.
Both see Space Camp as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I knew that I wanted a STEM career,” Vrieling said. “I’m so glad that I have the opportunity to get a start.”
“We are thrilled to have Mitsubishi as a partner,” said Moses Lake High School principal Mark Harris. “They’ve done a great thing here and said ‘how can we help you, help the kids?’”
Harris said Mitsubishi has recognized it has an opportunity here to work out a relationship with the community that allows it to invest in both education and the future.
“Mitsubishi is interested because we want you to consider an aerospace career,” said Reina Endo, a manager at the company’s Moses Lake flight test center.
Endo told the assembled ninth-graders that when she was their age, she played a lot of video games and a lot of tennis but didn’t really know what she wanted to do.
“I didn’t speak English well, so I was kind of lost. Science was a way to find my way,” Endo said.
Based at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Space Camp was established in 1982 to help kids and adults gets a hands-on education in space exploration and technology.