Stellar celebration
Armstrong’s hometown to mark 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing
WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Many people can recall, in great detail, where they were when a human first set foot on another world.
But where will you be during the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon?
How about the hometown of the man who took that “one small step” on July 20, 1969?
Neil Armstrong, who made the giant leap from Wapakoneta to the moon, will be celebrated this year by all mankind, but especially by the people of his hometown and home state.
Three years of planning have gone into Wapakoneta’s “First on the Moon” 50th anniversary celebration, running July 12-21.
The town is expecting a throng of visitors, said
Rachel Barber, co-chair of the celebration.
Armstrong died in 2012, but many of the people who knew him in Wapakoneta are still around to celebrate his achievements, Barber said.
“People say the 50th anniversary tends to be the biggest anniversary of any important event because you begin to lose the participants as you go further out,” she said.
“My mother, for example, was in the (Blume High School) class of ’47 with Neil, and I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t expect to be around for the 75th anniversary.
“Many of our VIP participants this year are childhood friends of Neil, people who went to school with him, so we still have a very tangible connection with that history. It’s wonderful to still be able to incorporate people who were part of the history in the celebration.”
The event will kick off with a Hot Air Balloon Rally at the Auglaize County Fairgrounds July 12-13, followed by the 50th anniversary parade from the fairgrounds through downtown Wapakoneta beginning at 3 p.m. July 14.
Downtown Wapakoneta will close its streets from July 17 to 20 for a festival street party including live music, a beer garden, a street market, food trucks, a vintage car show and antique tractor show and many more events.
The Armstrong Air & Space Museum is the gravitational center of the town’s celebration.
And the centerpiece of the museum, built to honor Armstrong, is the Gemini 8 capsule that took him and crew mate David Scott into space for their first mission, said museum director Dante Centuori.
That harrowing 1966 mission almost ended in disaster when a malfunctioning thruster caused the orbiting craft to start spinning unexpectedly. But Armstrong was able to regain control of his tumbling capsule and return safely to Earth. The whole gripping story of the flight, which also was the first time a manned spacecraft docked with another vehicle (the unmanned Agena target vehicle), is told at the museum.
The museum also displays Armstrong’s space suit from Gemini 8, his back-up suit from Apollo 11, a moon rock
picked up by Armstrong on his moon mission and, endearingly, the small Aeronca Champion airplane in which he learned to fly at the Wapakoneta airport, even before he learned to drive.
“It’s the actual plane he got his pilot’s license in, sitting 20 feet from the Gemini capsule he’d be flying 20 years later,” Centuori said.
“I always find that a remarkable thing to point out” to visitors, he said.
Another craft that Armstrong flew as a test pilot, one of only four experimental Douglas F5D Skylancers, has been beautifully restored and sits just outside the museum.
The Wapakoneta museum will be buzzing with activity during the anniversary celebrations, Centuori said. Among the events are appearances by five NASA astronauts, live feeds from the museum on NASA TV, model rocket workshops and launches and a “Wink at the Moon” concert on the museum lawn by the Lima Area Concert Band.
Everyone in town is getting into the spirit of the anniversary, Barber said. Local restaurants and taverns have even formed a “Moon Menu Trail,” featuring moon-landing inspired dishes and drinks.
The local Bob Evans restaurant is offering a dish called “Houston We Have a Pot Roast!” The Lucky Steer restaurant has a “Sea of Tranquility fish sandwich,” and local ice-cream shop Scoops features a “Hometown Hero Sundae” with a large helping of “moon rocks” (actually chocolate chunks, which taste much better).
“And I just heard of a local drinking establishment selling Tang shots,” Barber said.
Although Tang was long marketed as the beverage of astronauts, there was, sadly, no orange powder drink, much less shots of any kind, aboard Apollo 11.
But lifting an anniversary toast — of any kind — to Armstrong in his hometown might just be something to tell your grandchildren about years from now.
sstephens@dispatch.com