Nice to meet ya: Candy Wellins

It was the morning of June 3, 1965. A little boy wakes up on one of the first days of summer vacation, he’ll turn 12 years old in a few days and is very excited but not about his birthday. A U.S. astronaut would be leaving his capsule today and making a spacewalk. It was the exciting times of the space race. All launches were televised on all of the three national networks. He was glued to the TV.

The little boy, the rest of the U.S. and for that matter, the whole world watched on their black and white sets at the transmissions from space. Everyone was amazed how Gemini astronaut Ed White left the capsule, tethered to it with a lifeline, a dog-like leash to the capsule, which provided oxygen thousands of miles above the earth.

Nearly forgotten, amongst the names of giants such as Shepard, Glenn, and Armstrong, Ed White along with other Apollo I astronauts, Gus Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee, perished in a terrible blaze. They were testing equipment for a future flight to the moon.

This is a tragic story, and one that has been largely forgotten. But the dreams of those young, gazing up at the stars, are stories as old as man himself. But local author Candy Wellins’ children book on astronaut Ed White, titled “The Stars Beckoned’ is worth telling, reading and rereading for young children.

Wellins craft as a children’s author started a long time ago. She is also the author of “Saturdays Are For Stella.” Wellins grew up in Tacoma, Washington and had always wanted to be a writer, won an award in kindergarten for writing a story about a bunny, was her high school newspaper’s editor, then obtained a B.A. in Journalism and M.Ed. in Literacy Education. Going out to the real world, she taught elementary kids for ten years.

In the classroom, space travel was being discussed and of course students wanted to know who was the first. The Russians were first in many areas, first in space, first woman and on. But what about a space walk?

“So I Googled it and White's name comes up,” Wellins said. “And then there's a line about when he finished the spacewalk. And when he came back in he said, this is the saddest moment of my life (not wanting to come back into the capsule).”

Wellins continued, “I got serious about it. You can access all the transcripts of any NASA Flight online, I get to the crux of his mission, which it's super exciting because NASA is constantly saying ‘You've got five minutes. We need you back in five minutes, and he's totally ignoring them. And he's like, I'm going to take some more pictures… Finally, they said okay, you really have to get him in now. And that's when he came in and said, this is the saddest moment of my life.”

Wellins did get serious about the spacewalk and Ed White. She contacted the White family for their approval and insight. Writing about a fellow Texan was natural.

She no longer teaches school, but as a full time author is still educating through her books and homeschooling her children.

Her husband’s profession in the pharmaceutical industry led her family to Austin, then Belterra, and finally now Driftwood. She and her husband Brian have three children. As a post-script, the 12 year old boy was yours truly and Ed White’s spacewalk left a huge imprint and has never been forgotten.

The book is available at bookstores everywhere including Book People and candywellins.com.