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BE NICE, Outer Space

Published December 19, 2014

Williamson County Schools is taking the BE NICE way of life to brand new heights: outer space.

You see, it’s a long story, but we’ll shorten it for you. Barry Wilmore is the Commander of the International Space Station. Barry has a brother Jack Wilmore who lives in Williamson County and sends his children to Williamson County Schools. Jack is good friends with Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Schools Dr. Charles Farmer. Because of that, Jack has shared photos with Dr. Farmer. Dr. Farmer has then shared those photos with the senior staff of WCS at a staff meeting and Dr. Looney challenged Dr. Farmer to pull off a BE NICE photo from space. After some communication back and forth, Charles was sent this photo:

Jack, speaking on behalf of Barry, was more than excited to share the photos his brother was taking up in space.

“Thank you for the opportunity to share “BE NICE” from space with my brother Astronaut Barry Wilmore,” said Jack Wilmore. “He is on the International Space Station (ISS) until March 2015 and he enjoys sharing his experience in space and hopefully inspiring a few students who will one day take his place. The ISS crew does scientific experiments every day and communicates with earth scientists their results. In January, Barry and fellow astronaut Terry Virts will be doing a spacewalk laying out cables for future space craft docking to the ISS.”

Barry Wilmore was raised in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, and his Master of Science in Aviation Systems is from the University of Tennessee. He is a former fleet Naval officer and pilot, where he completed four operational deployments. Prior to his selection to NASA, Wilmore was on exchange to the United States Air Force as a flight test instructor at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in July 2000. Since then, he has logged more than 259 hours in space.