Southeast Mo. native honored for work with NASA

Last year Zalma, Mo., native Jerry J. Clubb received the National Rotarian NASA Stellar Award for "Outstanding technical excellence in the fields of spacecraft avionics development and operations with significant contributions to America's flagship human space flight and exploration programs."

Clubb studied pre-engineering at Southeast Missouri State University and completed undergraduate and graduate electrical engineering studies at Missouri School of Mines in Rolla. Clubb is considered one of the world's premiere avionics software, hardware and integration experts. He lent his expertise to several of America's human spaceflight and exploration programs, including Saturn I, Saturn V, Skylab, space shuttle, International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. He also managed the design and development of the Hubble Space Telescope data system for collecting and transmitting data to Earth.

Clubb received three NASA Exceptional Service Medals, a NASA Exceptional Leadership Medal and the Gagarin medal previously.

"Once when I was making a presentation to NASA management in Washington, D.C., they asked a lot of questions and for my recommendations and advice," Clubb said. "I wondered at the time what they would think if they knew that they were listening to someone from Zalma, Mo., a graduate from a very rural high school that only had 15 in the senior class."