Samuel Turner, 20, a Whitewater High School graduate, Class of 2007, was honored as one of two scholarship recipients of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Scholarship to serve an internship this summer working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

His maternal grandmother and great-grandmother are native Eskimos, and he is attending Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta through this special scholarship. He is majoring in mechanical engineering. ASRC chose only two students from all its scholarship students to spend the summer at NASA in Florida.

Turner spends his days working with contractors and photographing their work and taking it to NASA engineers. He has been there since May and will leave Aug. 7.

When asked for his view on watching the launch of Endeavour, he said, “Watching the Endeavour launch had to have been the highlight of my internship. After having the launch canceled five times in a row, it was great to see them finally get off the ground safely.

“At the same time, it was great to witness a shuttle launch in person because there are only eight shuttle launches left due to the shuttle program being terminated in 2010.

“There is truly nothing that can compare to the roar of 7.8 million pounds of thrust rocketing into low earth orbit.”

NASA named this center in late 1963 for the late President John F. Kennedy, who put America on the path to the moon. That event is having its 40th anniversary celebrated this month.