Local students help Ronald McDonald House Meet Prudence

By donnA nEwMAn

photo provided by the CnyspCA

h ey Prudence, come out to play! Prudence is a four year old bulldog mix who came to the shelter as a stray. She weighs a whopping 65 pounds but there’s a gentle heart in that big barrel of a body! Prudence is super sweet and super snorty. w e think she would make a great family dog. Prudence was the shelter ambassador at the Syracuse n ationals and met scores of people, include kids. She loved everyone, and everyone loved her. But Prudence doesn’t want the adulation of crowds; she just wants one special family who she can call her own. Could that be you? For more information about adoption, call 315-454-4479, email frontdesk1@cnyspca.org , or visit cnyspca.org.

Share your milestone celebrations!

Eagle Newspapers is here to help readers share their milestone celebrations, including birth announcements, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and milestone birthdays. The deadline to submit an announcement is 10 a.m. the Friday before publication. Announcements of up to 250 words with a photo cost just $50, with an additional 15 cents per word over 250 words. Announcements will be posted to eaglenewsonline.com within 24 hours of receipt of payment. To submit a milestone announcement, email Alyssa Dearborn at adearborn@eaglenewsonline.com, or call 315.434.8889 ext. 305.

The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central New York’s Youth Advisory Board recently hosted a “Chalkfest” event at the CNY Ronald McDonald House in late May.

Several local high school students are members of the Youth Advisory Board. RMHC of CNY Youth Advisory Board Members include Ella Butler, Marcellus High School; Olivia Nocilly, FayettevilleManlius High School; Andrew Nocilly, Fayetteville-Manlius

Carter

West Genesee High School; Madeline Massa, Christian Brothers Academy; Annie Gaughan, Bishop Ludden Junior-Senior High School. Made up of high school students from Central New York, the Youth Advisory Board creates projects that educate young people about the value of philanthropy and volunteerism in the community. As a group, the board plans and conducts fundraising events, community events and volunteer activities that raise awareness and funds for RMHC of CNY.

DEATH NOTICES

OuR vOicE

What we can achieve

The summer of 1969 is 54 years ago now, but in the grand scheme of things, 54 years is not a great deal of time, but a lot has happened in those five decades and a great deal was achieved in the years leading up to that summer.

Thinking of this particular point in time, images of events like Woodstock or anti-war protests might be the first images to come to mind.

Others may look at the things taking place on a sociological level and the divide that existed at that time may seem the most obvious from a historical perspective as the country was torn over the issue of American participation in Vietnam among other issues like the civil rights movement

It was a turbulent time, the culmination of a decade that saw the assignation of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert as well as Martin Luther King Jr.

But in the midst of all that was taking place, there were things that, at least for a few moments, could bring the country together.

July 20 marked the anniversary of first moon landing.

At least for a few fleeting moments, much of the country, if not the world, watched with its collective breath held as Neil Armstrong took those tentative steps down to the lunar surface from Apollo 11.

While there is some debate about what exactly he said and how his words were transferred across hundreds of thousands of miles of space back to Earth, the intent of his words ring true.

The steps he took were small for one person, but the steps represented a monumental leap for the entirety of the human race.

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin along with all the other members of the previous Apollo missions that orbited the moon and returned home, were farther away from Earth than anyone had every been or has been since.

The space program was gradually taking shape with the Mercury program and by the early ’60s orbits of the planet had been completed, but the moon was still very far off.

In 1962, just nine years before Armstrong took those historic steps, President Kennedy posed a challenge to the scientific community.

As he noted other explorers who went before, crossing oceans, searching for new lands, climbing insurmountable heights and odds in the search for new experiences and new knowledge, Kennedy set forth an aggressive timeline for American space exploration with a goal to land and return from the moon by the end of the decade.

While speaking at Rice University, Kennedy said, “But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? ... We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...”

There was a lot of learning that had to happen along the way, a lot of creation and discovery. There were also losses as the crew of Apollo 1 lost their lives in a fire.

And there would be challenges after. Most famously Apollo 13.

But through this all there was incredible perseverance that continued to push forward and follow Kennedy’s mandate to seek new knowledge and climb new mountains.

Looking back on that incredible moment of July 20, 1969, it was an amazing feat of human ingenuity accomplished with less computing power than the average cell phone or laptop has these days.

It was because of space exploration that much of the technology, like cell phones and GPS to name a few, have come to be common place.

But more than any of these creations, it represents all that we can accomplish when humans set a goal and work together to achieve even that which may seem impossible.