Issue date: 7/13/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Chris Hokanson Chris Hokanson - The Battalion Senior Yell Leaders Grant Castleberry and Chris Buckner and junior Yell Leader James Mulvey lead a yell practice to honor Michael Fossum at the Outpost Tavern in Webster, a bar frequented by astronauts and NASA employees.

The Outpost Tavern hosted its first Aggie yell practice, complete with all five yell leaders, in Webster Wednesday night in honor of Michael Fossum, the first Aggie to fly in space.

Although Fossum is still on the space shuttle Discovery orbiting Earth, he will view a video recording of the yell practice on Thursday.

The Outpost, an Air Force barracks brought from Ellington Field in 1965, sits just down the road from the Johnson Space Center, NASA's home.

The bar is a famous after-hours hangout for astronauts and other NASA employees, said Outpost owner Sharon Aden, who bought the bar after the original owner's death.

"Old astronauts came here all the time, during the splashdown days (when NASA used rockets and capsules fell to Earth after their orbits were completed)," she said. "It's played host to all kinds of people and parties, from retirements to crew announcements and now, an Aggie party."

At 6 p.m., Aggies from the Clear Lake and Houston areas poured into the bar, eager to celebrate Fossum's journey into space.

"It's great," said David Dean, Class of 1976 and a contractor for Wyle Labratories. "T-sips had a guy on the first shuttle flight, but no one remembers that. Everyone will remember this because of what the Aggie family did. Any time an Aggie does something great like this, we celebrate."

The yell leaders led a crowd of Aggies in a yell practice outside the tavern at 8 p.m., but their activities began long before that.

"We got to see the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, the giant pool where they train astronauts for zero gravity, then we went to Mission Control," said Tyler Wellborn, a senior yell leader. "There were Aggies everywhere. There were six or seven just at Mission Control for the International Space Station. They were really excited to see us."

Continued...

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