`MR ED': JACKSON HIGH TEACHER BRINGS SCIENCE TO LIFE

Jackson High School physics teacher Ed Sebaugh was interviewed by WPSD News Channel 6 from Paducah, Ky., reporter Jennifer Gladstone and photographer Emily Wells. Sebaugh was astronaut Linda Godwin's physics teacher.

JACKSON -- Ed Sebaugh isn't an imposing figure. He looks like someone's father or grandpa, walking around a science lab sipping on iced tea and munching Cheetos before his next class.

His students call him "Mr. Ed."

But great minds have developed in Sebaugh's classes. Heart specialists. Biochemists. Engineers.

The most notable is Linda Godwin, who recently returned from her third mission in space. This time, she and crewmates docked on the Russian shuttle Mir.

Godwin graduated from Jackson High School in 1970, having taken Sebaugh's physics and advanced physics classes. She went on to become the second woman to obtain her doctorate in physics from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Sebaugh stays in touch with Godwin, corresponding and trading phone calls on occasion. He remembers her performance in school.

"I knew she was a good science and math student," he said. "I did not know she would get her doctorate and go to work for NASA."

His link to an astronaut has brought Sebaugh some notoriety in recent days. Television stations from St. Louis and Paducah recently broadcast interviews with him.

Most people don't realize how close Sebaugh came to being an industrial engineer instead of a teacher. His senior year of college, his mother encouraged him to take a few education classes. By the time Sebaugh did his student teaching, he was hooked.

He worked at Fox High School in Arnold for three years, then came to Jackson in 1963. Students have been filing in and out of his laboratory ever since. Today, 65 percent of students who graduate from Jackson have taken chemistry and 35 percent have taken physics.

Those are high numbers for classes traditionally avoided by students.

"People perceive science as something they can't do, something for nerds or eggheads," Sebaugh said. "I'm really proud of the numbers of kids we have at this school who take a science."

Science classes at Jackson have attracted many female students, which is another statistic Sebaugh said makes him proud. He remembers Linda Godwin expressing her surprise when she found herself one of the few women taking physics in college.

Junior Hallie Roseman is one of Sebaugh's students. Although she plans to go into a medical profession, she took an unrelated class, physics.

"I heard Mr. Sebaugh was a good teacher and fun in class," Roseman said. "It ended up being a lot easier than I thought. He is just a nice guy."

Sebaugh said he uses his sense of humor in teaching and tries to make difficult concepts easier to understand.

Memories of college teachers who complicated simple things make him try harder, he said.

"You have to be able to explain things so someone else can pick up on them," Sebaugh said. "I don't think that's something you can teach teachers."

At age 56 and with 36 years in the district, Sebaugh could retire. He doesn't plan to do it anytime soon and will continue to chair the Jackson High School science department, teaching physics and advanced physics.

He recently received the Southeast Missouri District Teachers Association's Award for Meritorious Service.