Barry Brubaker Retires

Barry Brubaker of Stratford has retired as a driver or "pilot and commander" for Dream Flight USA.

The educational program based on NASA's space shuttles continues to fly high, even as the real space program gets ready to shut down. An independent nonprofit organization, Wausau-based Dream Flight touches thousands of students and plenty of adults each year throughout the Midwest.

A retired social studies teacher at Stratford High School, Brubaker, 65, drove the Dream Flight's "shuttle," a converted motor coach dubbed Spirit of Education, during the course of four years to more than 100 Dream Flight school missions and throughout Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.

The Spirit of Education contains several work stations that allow students to do hands-on activities such as mimic working in space wearing bulky gloves or operating a mechanical arm.

Working for Dream Flight was a natural for Brubaker.

"My dad was an airline pilot and my mother was a stewardess," he said. "I literally was flying while in her womb."

Brubaker also was a pilot and taught prospective pilots. All those skills meshed well with the Dream Flight program.

"He was wonderful, absolutely wonderful with students," said Nick Ryan, Dream Flight USA executive director.

Brubaker said the need to simplify his life led to his decision to step away from the program.

"I really enjoyed (it) and working with the kids," he said. "It's planting the seed for the future. ... You never know what they'll end up doing."

Dream Flight not only fired up students' enthusiasm for learning, said Dr. Gary Zimbric of Marshfield Clinic, "but it really taught them a lot in how to work in groups and teams, and how to acquire new, usable skills, especially with the hands-on projects."

Zimbric's three children, now adults, all participated in the program, and he volunteered himself to help teach students on the missions' medical teams.

"It showed that science is useful, that it's not just something learned in a classroom," Zimbric said.

NASA's real space shuttle program is scheduled to end this month, after the shuttle Atlantis completes a 12-day mission to the International Space Station that begins Friday. NASA is in the midst of replacing the program with a newer and more efficient means of space travel.

Meanwhile, the space agency also will concentrate on working with the International Space Station.