Thomas Nelson Community College on Thursday will honor NASA Langley Research Center, a long-time partner since the college was first founded in 1967.
The college will present its 12th annual Presidential Leadership Award to NASA Langley for strides it has made in diversity, said TNCC President John Dever.
The award was established to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and is given to an outstanding community leader or entity.
During the award ceremony Thursday night, which is free and open to the public, NASA pioneer Katherine G. Johnson will appear via video.
Johnson, 99, rose to national prominence in recent years as one of the real-life stars of Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures,” the movie about the true story of African-American women working behind the scenes at NASA Langley as “human computers.” The same-titled book was written by Hampton native Margot Lee Shetterly.
Johnson, who lives in Newport News, helped calculate — by hand — the computations necessary to determine the window and trajectory for Alan Shepard’s trip as the first American in space. She also verified NASA’s computer-based calculations for John Glenn’s orbit around Earth, at Glenn’s request.
Dever was with Johnson when she filmed the video for the award ceremony on Dec. 26.
“As we talked, one of the key things about her life is that she used education as her way of advancing herself and in doing so, of course, broke other barriers as well, not just for herself,” Dever said. “She also was part of something much larger but she was able to do it because of the education that she had had.”
The center’s efforts to integrate and hire women, including women of color, makes it a worthy recipient of the PLA award, Dever said. Since TNCC first was established 50 years ago, it has had a close working relationship with NASA Langley, helping educate more than 600 technologists and technicians to fulfill essential jobs at the center.
The award ceremony will take place at 7:15 p.m. at TNCC’s Hampton campus in the Dr. Mary T. Christian Auditorium in Templin Hall. For more information, call 757-825-2725.
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