Shella Condino
Shella Condino obtained her bachelors degree in Physics from Philippine Normal University in Manila, Philippines in 1993. She is currently teaching Physics, Advanced Placement Physics B, Chemistry, and Scientific Research and Design subjects at Presidio High School in Presidio, Texas.She has always been amazed and fascinated by the vast space. Prior to teaching in Presidio, she taught at Eastwood Middle School in El Paso, Texas and participated in several professional development programs related to astronomy. In 2005, she participated in Texas Space Grant Consortium Astronomy Workshop held at McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas. She was also a 2006 grant recipient of the Teacher Leader on Research Based Science Educator (TLRBSE) of the National Optical and Astronomical Observatory and conducted astronomical research on variable stars along with professional astronomers at Mt. Kitt Peak Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. She also participated at the SETI Institute Astrobiology Summer Science Experience for Teachers in 2007 held in San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California.
Her intensive passion for aerospace and astronomy began at an early age. She always dreamed of becoming an educator astronaut someday. Her dream came close to reality when she got selected by Honeywell Solutions as one of the 220 teachers in the world to participate at the 2010 Educator Space Camp held at the US Rocket and Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She became the recipient of “The Right Stuff’ medal awarded by former astronaut Robert ‘Hoot’ Gibson.
Shella started rocketry with 8th graders from El Paso, TX in 2002 where they launch rockets in Las Cruces and Alamogordo, NM. When her family moved to Presidio, TX she introduced rocketry as a summer enrichment for high school students. She began teaching basic rocketry to English Language Students (ESL). That enrichment was followed by a week long rocketry summer camp for students held at Texas Tech University. Dr. John Chandler, director of T-STEM Center at TTU saw the potential and skills of her students and began supporting by mentoring the students in her rocketry program. She encouraged her ESL students to compete at the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), world’s largest model rocketry contest in 2007. On their first try, Presidio placed top 19th in the nation outscoring around 700 teams in the US. The following year, she had 3 teams at the national finals, finishing 9th and 11th place. This current year, 4 teams traveled to Virginia to compete at the national finals. These placements at the top 20 in TARC paved way to their introduction to advanced and high power rocketry. NASA accepted their research proposals for two consecutive years for the Student Launch Initiative Advanced Rocketry Program. Her students designed and built 10-12 ft. rockets carrying scientific payloads and launched them at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The rocketry teams received generous support from NASA, Overlook Systems Technologies Inc, Texas Tech University, Texas Alliance of Minority Engineers, West Texas Rocketry, POTROCS and Presidio ISD. Presidio rocketry teams gained the respect of many rocket experts and always received the best compliments from NASA SLI staff and NAR rocket experts due to Presidio rocket's perfectly straight launches. Aside from rocketry, she also coaches robotics, UIL number sense, STEM contests, and even STEM-business competition. Her selection as the 2011 A. Scott Crossfield National Aerospace Teacher of the Year is one of the best events in her life. Not only she got to meet many government, aerospace industry leaders and aviation enthusiasts, she also got the opportunity to meet former astronauts like Joe Engle, Frank Borman, Hoot Gibson and her aerospace hero, Neil Armstrong!
Shella is the oldest of eight children from parents who both retired as elementary school principals, Simplicio and Teresita. She is happily married to Darwin who currently works as a correctional officer 3 at Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Her three beautiful children are Gwynelle, Gwyn Vladimir and Gwyn Aerrielle.
Acceptance Speech
Tonight I feel very honored and blessed to receive this award. First of all, my deepest gratitude goes to Him, the Almighty God, for giving me the privilege to be one of the "Crossfield Kids." God indeed is so loving and great for giving me the opportunity to meet many wonderful people.
One amazing person is Mr. Milt Clary, senior aviation analyst from Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., who nominated me for this recognition. Our rocketry team met Mr. Clary in 2010 at the national finals of Team America Rocketry Challenge held in Virginia. He could not believe that the rural border town of Presidio, Texas would have teams competing at the national level. Mr. Clary came across the desolate Presidio town when he was a little boy together with his father to explore the Big Bend and all he could remember of the town were dirt and rocks he said. But then after meeting with our students, he said that he was very impressed. Even if they are struggling in speaking English (our rocketry members are ELLs English Language Learners), they are very smart, respectful, well mannered and clearly loved learning and accomplishment. He said that the way in which they conducted themselves, accepted setbacks and overcame obstacles gave him the confidence in our nation’s future.
Mr. Clary grew up in small rural town of Sabinal, Texas. He said that he was fortunate to have three teachers that drew out the best in him and that he is so encouraged to witness the phenomenon repeating itself in Presidio. He followed our achievements and continued communicating and finding more support for our rocketry program. He also recognized and appreciated the high level of commitment, passion and dedication of the program's teacher-sponsors (Mrs. Sanchez, Mrs. Crucido and I). Mr. Clary believed our program deserved to be recognized considering our achievements despite austere circumstances. And since the teachers that made a remarkable difference in his life were all gone now, and in some way or another I seemed to touch and make impact in the lives of my students, Mr. Clary would like me to receive this recognition and also to be an opportunity to "pay an honor forward."
Now what is the success story of Presidio Rocketry?
First, where is Presidio located? Where is this place that according to Mr. Clary is just dirt and rocks? Presidio is located in the southwest of Texas, near the Rio Grand and the Big Bend area. It is a rural border town with a population of about 4000. It is around 250 miles away from the nearest big city which is El Paso, TX; with only one Thriftway grocery store; one American fast-food (Subway); and with the highest heat index in the state (summer temperatures range between 105-120F). Presidio is the 3rd poorest town in the state of Texas with an average household income of $18,000. Now that picture does not seem appealing or interesting isn't it? There is literally nothing in Presidio... and nothing to do at all. Some of our students often times ended getting involved in illegal drugs, drinking alcohol, teenage pregnancy, and dangerous drag or car racing in Ojinaga, Mexico.
When I moved to Presidio to teach, I felt the desperate need of the students in getting involved on some worthwhile activities. I introduced model rocketry as a summer enrichment program. At first, communication with my students was a great challenge. I do not speak Spanish and they do not speak English. Instructions were always coupled with weird sign languages and demonstrations. It was just hard. So my rocketry students put the catchphrase in our team banner that reads 'We build and design rockets not because it is easy... but because it is hard.' Every time we would reminisce those days when they started rocketry, we would all laugh and then later cry. We are so amazed of how far our students and our program has accomplished.
What are these accomplishments?
Well, God really works in wonders. He will provide you with the right people to meet and work with. Right after the first summer rocketry enrichment, I received an email from Texas Tech University. It was an invitation for high school students to participate in a week long Rocketry Camp in Lubbock, Texas. I thought to myself, this is perfect timing, a perfect culminating activity after my enrichment class. My students have never been on a field trip out of the Big Bend so they were all excited. There we met Dr. John Chandler, director of the T-STEM Engineering Outreach Program. He was amazed how my students easily learned the basics of rocketry, despite the language difficulty. (I did not tell him that I already taught them a few). All 5 teams finished top 2-6th during the rocket challenge. While waiting for our school bus to arrive and drive us 7-8 hours back to Presidio, my students noticed that some of the other local student participants threw away their model rockets in the trash. They asked my permission to collect them and any rocket part that they think would still be useful. Model rocketry is quite expensive and we have limited budget from our school district. I taught my students to learn to value materials and salvage everything that could be useful. Dr. Chandler was touched to see them digging into the trashcan. He donated 3 boxes full of rocket supplies, including reloadable motors, motor cases and altimeters!
Then we courageously competed at the Team America Rocketry Challenge that same year. Fortunately, one of our team’s score qualified to the top 100 out of 669 teams in the nation and was invited at the national finals in Virginia. Presidio... we have a problem! How in the world are we going to send 4 students and a teacher out of state? Transportation cost is just expensive. Our district is poor. We tried our best to raise money buy selling bake goods and Mexican frozen treats. Our creativity even included raffling tender goats for $3.00 a ticket! It was just not enough. So I relied on God’s divine intervention. I took a group of bright students to compete at the state STEM contest held in Lockheed Martin Facility in Fort Worth, TX. It was sponsored by the Texas Alliance of Minority Engineers (TAME). I sort of vented my group’s situation to the Midland coordinator Mr. Mike Cervantes, geologist from Conoco Philips during our celebratory dinner. Mr. Cervantes mentioned it to the board members of TAME and little we know that Dr. Chandler is member of that organization. Highly designated people from Lockheed, Texas Tech, Conoco Philips, TAME state, and Chevron pulled together $3000.00 from their personal checks and sent us to TARC finals in Virginia. Our team finished top 19th in the nation! Because of our placement in the top 20, it gives us eligibility to submit a science research proposal to NASA for the Student Launch Initiative Advanced Rocketry Research Program. Dr. Chandler and Mr. Schneider became our NAR/Tripoli mentors and we built and launch our first 10 ft tall high power rocket carrying scientific payloads at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Our team got featured on the front page of Huntsville Times that Monday for displaying the most perfectly straight safe rocket launch. Since then, Presidio Rocketry always has teams that qualify at the national TARC finals. In 2010, we had 3 teams in the finals, 2 of which finished top 9th and 15th in the nation. This year we had 4 teams and we got featured at The Scientific American and The Marshall Stars. Also last year, NASA accepted 2 rocket research proposals from Presidio. The students launched a 10ft and a 12ft tall rockets carrying DNA samples and fused cells of some desert plants for biochemical research. There were 39 universities and 18 high schools in the nation that participated the SLI. Bragging aside, Presidio rockets were the crowd's favorite rocket launches on that day. Somebody commented that we did not just got lucky the first time, our rockets once again were not only launched perfectly straight but landed the closest to the launch pad. A mentor from another school complemented us and said that Presidio 'wrote the book' in rocketry.
In closing, I would like to equally share this award to my co-sponsors (Mrs. Sanchez and Mrs. Crucido) who also spent sleepless nights every time we had rocket and robotics contests; to my children and husband, Darwin, for being so understanding and supportive of all my endeavors; and most especially to all my students. They are the reason why I love teaching. And to this country which gives me these great opportunities, this is my way of giving back. Teaching the future to the best of my abilities!
Thank you very much to everyone involved in putting this marvelous event together particularly the National Aviation Hall of Fame and Scott Crossfield Foundation. Also, thanks to the Vann family, Julie and Zack for welcoming us to their home. You all are God's blessings. Thank you America and God bless this great nation.