OUT OF THIS WORLD! At least two Arkansans were involved with the recent New Horizons spacecraft's Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission, which last week sent back close-up images of the dwarf planet Pluto. And both of them previously attended college in Conway -- one at Hendrix College and the other at the University of Central Arkansas.
One was Fort Smith native Chelsey Bryant Krug, a graduate of Southside High who studied astrophysics at Hendrix College, reports the Southwest Times Record in Fort Smith.
Krug currently works at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder. She was among those there who celebrated the NASA craft's pass by Pluto last week.
As a graduate student in the physics department in the early 2000s, she joined a revolving team of up to 20 students who built the New Horizons Student Dust Counter, the first student-built instrument to fly on a NASA planetary mission.
The other Arkansan was David James, a graduate of Huntsville High and the University of Central Arkansas. He was a member of the Student Dust Counter team and now works as a professional research assistant at the University of Colorado, reports KFSM-TV of Fort Smith.
In January 2006, New Horizons was launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a 4 billion-mile journey to the solar system's outer rim. Others involved in the mission include the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and the Southwest Research Institute. In early 2007, on its way toward Pluto, the spacecraft made a close flyby of Jupiter to achieve a gravitational boost that reduced its cruise time by about three years, according to the website for the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
ROLE MODEL: El Dorado native Lacey Rogers is hitting the runway this summer as she competes on the next season of CW's America's Next Top Model beginning at 8 p.m. Aug. 5. The 18-year-old, 5-foot-7-inch, raven-haired beauty, who began modeling in January 2014, proclaims on the blog on her website that she is a Christian (she's attended First Baptist Church in El Dorado all of her life) and a virgin and has never done drugs. Visit laceyclairerogersonline.com to learn more about the business marketing and communications student who's currently living in Los Angeles. And, according to her bio, eating her fair share of peanut butter.
MUSICAL MIX: Arkansas native Charlie Farley's new CD, Hog Heaven, on the Average Joes Entertainment label, is being sold at Wal-Mart. Farley, who was reared in De Queen, is described as a "country rapper" and "a disciple of hick-hop." Songs on his new CD include "When the Tailgate Drops," "Stabbin' Cabin," "Backwoods Boys" and "Jacked Up" featuring Colt Ford and Southern country-rap trailblazer Bubba Sparxxx, whom Farley credits as one of his earliest influences.
Contact Linda S. Haymes at (501) 399-3636 or [email protected]
SundayMonday on 07/19/2015