This is the face of America
Everyone, take a good look at page A5 of this Sunday’s Gazette, showing the Best & Brightest scholarship winners for the high school class of 2021. I congratulate each winner as representative of a generation that is skilled, hardworking and goal-oriented.
I was struck, however, by the names and faces. This page is an icon of our city’s diversity, running the full gamut of ethnicity and gender. The family names Nashikkar, Vispute, Zamora Ruelas, Cimpaye, Bui, Nguyen-Lopez, and Patel further suggest this great diversity and provide an important lesson for our country. These are families that came from all over the world; immigrants, possibly refugees, maybe without much obvious to offer but their humanity. The families likely came for the great promise of America: the chance to make better lives for their children. Now, here are their children, excelling, making themselves into exemplary citizens.
Our 1960s-era electric grid
In February, the U.S. Space Command Headquarters Selection Process (Colorado) Report cited reliability of our electric grid as a deficiency. Regrettably, the report is correct, the grid serving Peterson AFB does not make the grade. The first deficiency is the physical security of the 1960s-era electric substation near the Peterson Road entrance. It is not hardened and could be taken out with a few well-placed rifle shots. There are other vulnerable above ground electric circuits serving the base so it is likely it would not lose all power, but who knows?
The second deficiency is the North American Electric Reliability Corporation rates the Springs electric grid as 99.9954% reliable, which means any Springs Utilities customer can experience a 45-minute outage annually. The Air Force needs a 100% “can’t fail” grid. In March, Utilities executed a $460K contract with Quanta Technologies (NYSE: PWR) based in Raleigh, N.C., to research a building a micro
Joe Chamness: the boy who could fly
By Butch Dale • • • •
EDITOR’S NOTE: Popular columnist Butch Dale has offered to share some stories about Montgomery County sports. This is the sixth of those stories.
Before consolidation, most of the small county schools only had three sports . . . basketball, baseball and track (although in the 1960s, two or three schools started 8-man football teams). I loved participating in basketball and baseball . . . but track? Not so much. I ran in various events in junior high, but I could never get excited about the sport. However, as an 8th grader my attitude changed when I watched the Montgomery County high school track meet at Wabash College in the spring of 1962.