Neil Armstrong pulled off an out-of-this world feat that didn’t have a thing to do with Apollo 11.
It was how he launched his personality.
He managed to be unassuming — and an astronaut — all at once.
And in 1964, in the mountains of Pocahontas County, he gave a talk at the National Youth Science Camp, detailing NASA’s plans to put astronauts on the moon by decade’s end.
Five years later, he was the first, as a new group of campers looked up at those stars in the heavens and cheered.
Science-minded high school seniors, and newly minted graduates, are again gathering at the camp, which runs Saturday through July 10 at Camp Pocahontas, nestled in the National Radio Quiet Zone near the Monongalia National Forest.
This is the first in-person gathering since the pandemic, director Brian Kinghorn said.
“I am absolutely thrilled that we will be back in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia for our 60th anniversary,” said Kinghorn, a professor and researcher at Marshall University who has directed the camp for the past 14 years.
West Virginia has hosted the science camp since 1963.
It was founded on occasion of the state’s 100th birthday and President John F. Kennedy’s “boldly go” directive to break free the bonds of Earth for interstellar explorations of the cosmos.
Call the camp a mind-meld of kumbaya and quantum physics, with a lot of just plain Mountaineer fun thrown in, Kinghorn and the other organizers said.
More than 100 participants from across the U.S. and nine countries will roam those mountains and valleys this year, including Benjamin Li, who will be a senior this fall at Morgantown High School.
Don’t be surprised if a decade from now, his signature is on that high-tech, whiz-bang device you didn’t know you couldn’t live without.
“I would like to be a scientist,” said the MHS student, who is still winnowing his college choices.
“I have also developed an interest in business,” he continued.
“I’ve always enjoyed brainstorming business ideas.”
For him, those ideas are as numerous as those aforementioned stars twinkling and swirling in that Pocahontas County night sky.
“The business road is so broad,” he said, “and there are many intersections that cross into this path — whether that be environmental science, technology and much more.”
“Much more,” Kinghorn said, is most definitely on the bill for Version 2023 of the camp.
Campers will hear from 50 presenters who are marquee names in the world of STEM — the science, technology, engineering and mathematics pursuits that their way into the place that bills itself as, “Almost Heaven.”
They include researchers and “innovators,” the director said, from NASA and Northrop Grumman, along with authors and podcasters.
More than 6,300 students have taken part since that first year in 1963.
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