YOUNGSTOWN Memorial foundation focuses on Space Camp

Scholarship winners will meet Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- When Terry Lynch died, his wife and daughters made a list of how they wanted to carry on his name.
Youngstown State University came first.
Second was the Space Camp program in Huntsville, Ala.
"Terry was very proud of that Space Camp ... and his friends remained very committed to it," said his wife, Jackie Lynch of Poland. "Terry loved that program. He really loved the space program."
Lynch was 49 when he died Sept. 11, 2001, in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Since then, his family has started a Terry Lynch Foundation in his memory. Today, Mrs. Lynch and YSU officials announced that the foundation will fund four scholarships to Space Camp for middle and high school pupils in the Mahoning Valley. The announcement was made at a press conference in the Ward-Beecher Planetarium on the YSU campus .
The foundation has also funded more than $20,000 in scholarships this year, said YSU History Department Chair Martha Pallante. The scholarships have assisted six YSU students.
The Space Camp scholarships will be awarded in conjunction with YSU's annual History Day competition in April. Space Camp tuition starts at about $800 for a beginning level program.
Youngsters will be asked to ponder the colonization of Mars on a poster or in an essay, Pallante said. Two middle school and two high school pupils will win scholarships.
Pallante said a goal is to have pupils integrate various disciplines in their proposals, much like the history and physics/astronomy departments work together at YSU.
She said the goal is not only to prepare the next generation of space explorers but also to prepare "people who are going to have to cope with the human essence of that as well."
Background
Lynch, an Ursuline High School graduate with bachelor- and master-level degrees in history from Youngstown State University, was working as a consultant and lobbyist in Washington for Booz Allen Hamilton when he died. At the time, he and his family lived in Mount Vernon, Va.
Mrs. Lynch, also a YSU graduate, said her husband had worked to help create the Space Camp program and worked with many astronauts from the Apollo space program and beyond.
She said both the couple's daughters, Tiffany, now 25, and Ashley, 19, attended Space Camp.
Other upcoming Lynch Foundation activities include an annual fund-raising dinner dance Sept. 18, featuring Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, in conjunction with a 10-kilometer race at Mill Creek Park.
Scholarship winners also will be invited to lunch with the astronaut.
Scholarship application deadline is March 19. Call Megan Reed at (330) 941-3452 for further information.