Newsletter for the Alumni and Friends of
Hicksville High School Hicksville, New York

The Editors:
Buffalo Bob Casale '61	Linda (Piccerelli) Hayden '60
Pat (Koziuk) Driscoll '56	Bob (Gleason) Wesley '61

Contributing Editors: Bob Gillette & Walter Schmidt

Webmaster: Roger Whitaker

To contact the editors, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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HICKSVILLE VIETNAM WAR ERA MEMORIAL - PROJECT UPDATE

A couple of yet to be posted donations came in, but are not yet recorded as Bill Walden is out of town. Otherwise, there is no change from our July 1 Update, where we indicated the following:

Plans for an official monument dedication remain on hold due to virus regulations and restrictions. At this time the monument can be viewed in the Hicksville Memorial Gardens on an individual basis at the south side of the Hicksville Middle School.

We understand that Hicksville and Levittown rank #1 & #2 in the number of coronavirus cases in Nassau County. We'll keep you posted as things begin to change and promise that we will alert everyone of the dedication ceremony date, once we have it officially approved. We will also give everyone as much advance notice as possible, in the event they can and wish to attend.

With the continued state of the Coronavirus Pandemic, we have nothing new to report at this time. Our last Update is again posted in the Honoring Our Veterans section of this newsletter and represents the current status of the Project.

Additional donations can continue to help us cover the cost of a Dedication Ceremony gathering for school district and local official dignitaries, as well as to honor donors who have made very significant contributions to the Memorial. Further donations will also help with maintenance and upkeep of the Memorial for many years to come.

The project will be officially complete once we are able to conduct the Dedication Ceremony at the Memorial.

Please visit the Honoring Our Veterans tab of this newsletter for the full update.

On behalf of the Project Team,
Joe Carfora, HHS 1962

CLASS OF 1980 CLASS REUNION

August 8, 2021 7:30-11:30 pm
Oak Room at the Heritage Club at Bethpage. 
Cost $125 includes food and drink. 
Payment info will be released soon.
Nearby Hotels include: (Book sooner rather than later)
Hilton Garden Inn Round Swamp Road
Homewood Suites Round Swamp Road
Holiday Inn, Plainview on Sunny Side Blvd
Four Points by Sheraton in Melville, Plainview on South Service Road
Any questions? Contact Sue at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Newsletter

Photo Gallery

Birthdays & Anniversaries

Memory Lane

Historical Events That Happened In August

This is a look at some events that happened during the month of August in the Civil War and other years...

Infamous Quantrill's Raiders

Quantrill's Raiders were the best-known of the pro-Confederate partisan guerrillas (also known as "bushwhackers") who fought in the American Civil War. Their leader was William Quantrill and they included Jesse James, his brother Frank James, and Bloody Bill Anderson.

William Quantrill

Jesse JamesFrank James

Bloody Bill Anderson

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 - October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth as a cotton plantation owner, horse and cattle trader, real estate broker, and slave trader. In June 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became one of the few soldiers during the war to enlist as a private and be promoted to general without any prior military training. An expert cavalry leader, Forrest was given command of a corps and established new doctrines for mobile forces, earning the nickname "The Wizard of the Saddle". His methods influenced future generations of military strategists, although the Confederate high command is seen by some commentators to have underappreciated his talents.[3] Although scholars generally acknowledge Forrest's skills and acumen as a cavalry leader and military strategist, he has remained a controversial figure in Southern racial history for his main role in the massacre of several hundred Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, a majority of them black, coupled with his role following the war as a leader of the Klan.

Ship Of Gold

Ship Of Gold Sails into Oblivion

A frigate with more than 150 souls on board, as well as nearly three tons of gold, sailed out of Melbourne on this day, August 12, 1853 - never to be seen again. SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, was a 280-foot (85 m) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the eastern coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally named the SS George Law, after Mr. George Law of New York The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with 425 of her 578 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857.

America 's Last Public Hanging

The last man to be publicly hanged in the United States met his fate on August 14, 1936. A crowd variously estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 gathered at Owensboro, Kentucky on this day to watch the last ever public hanging in the United States The fact that the prisoner was a young black man and that the sheriff overseeing the execution was a white woman intensified the interest of both the public and the Press.

August 1, 1838 - Slavery was abolished in Jamaica It had been introduced by Spanish settlers 300 years earlier in 1509.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank

August 1, 1944 - Anne Frank penned her last entry into her diary. "[I] keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would like to be, and what I could be, if...there weren't any other people living in the world." Three days later, Anne and her family were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Anne died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on March 15, 1945, at age 15.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

August 3, 1492 - Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria Seeking a westerly route to the Far East, he instead landed on October 12th in the Bahamas, thinking it was an outlying Japanese island.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

August 4, 1962 - Apartheid opponent Nelson Mandela was arrested by security police in South Africa He was then tried and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1964, he was placed on trial for sabotage, high treason and conspiracy to overthrow the government and was sentenced to life in prison. A worldwide campaign to free him began in the 1980s and resulted in his release on February 11, 1990, at age 71 after 27 years in prison. In 1993, Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with South Africa 's President F.W. de Klerk for their peaceful efforts to bring a nonracial democracy to South Africa In April 1994, black South Africans voted for the first time in an election that brought Mandela the presidency of South Africa

Casale's Corner

The International Space Station Is More Valuable Than Many People Realize

"It's crucial to our exploration of the solar system, but this marvel of innovation has not always had the support it deserves."
Scientific American
Christian Zur

In 1984 when President Reagan directed NASA to build a permanently occupied space station, no one could have predicted the critical role it would play in human space exploration nearly four decades later.

The International Space Station (ISS) took 12 years to build with support from 16 nations and has been populated continuously since November 2000. A colossal achievement by any measure, the station weighs a million pounds and is the single most expensive object ever built. And it should be.

Truly a jewel in the crown of human achievement, the ISS gave the U.S. and its partners an operational outpost in the most austere environment ever known. Over its lifespan, more than 2,400 experiments have been conducted by more than 230 visitors from 18 countries. The station's crew have logged over 1,300 extravehicular activity (EVA) hours on more than 217 spacewalks. Over their lifetime, teenagers have seen a constant revolution in technology, some of it exclusively the result of space access and research. But this marvel of innovation has not always had the support it deserves.

Since the high point of the Apollo program, NASA endured criticism for being too focused on sustaining the space shuttle at the expense of deep-space exploration. Not surprisingly, political support and funding atrophied as a result. Indeed, in 1993 the station came a mere one vote away from termination in the House of Representatives. 

And yet, while few were watching since the shuttle stood down in 2011, a new and reinvigorated agency is emerging with a vision that should captivate even the cynics. Under Space Policy Directive 1 (SPD-1), NASA and the ISS National Laboratory are accelerating the nation's push into commercial space. With an expected trillion-dollar space economy to come, the ISS can play a defining role in the formation of the industry.

Aboard the ISS, an array of basic and applied research programs are underway with participation of companies such as Boeing, Anheuser-Busch, Sanofi, LambdaVision, Space Tango, Airbus, and Teledyne Brown Engineering. The ISS is effectively the premier space R&D lab, and companies are utilizing microgravity at the edge of the human frontier 250 miles up to solve problems here on Earth.

Beyond the major policy shift announced in June to allow for greater commercial partnerships aboard ISS, other major milestones are underway. Last month, NASA and Boeing assembled 80 percent of the massive core stage needed to launch the Space Launch System and Orion on their first mission to the Moon: Artemis 1.

Notably, NASA's "new" charge to facilitate and encourage the commercial sector is nothing new. After all, NASA has fostered some of the greatest technological developments in all of human history. And later this year, NASA's Commercial Crew transport will launch from Cape Canaveral to resupply the ISS.

But no one should take for granted the colossal task of maintaining this orbital toehold. Despite being sheltered within our planet's magnetic shield, the ISS has endured a battering equivalent to an aircraft carrier in World War II's Battle of Midway. Shuttle veteran Alvin Drew recounted to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a year ago his EVA experience with razor sharp ISS exterior surfaces because of the sandblasting effect of the low Earth orbit environment.

Just maintaining the operational status of the station alone is an achievement. Over the decades NASA and Boeing, as prime contractor, have stretched and maximized the platform as a test bed to fully evolve our understanding of microgravity's effect on metabolic systems. Humans are fragile after all. But SPD-1 boldly charts out human exploration to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

With ISS as its point of departure, NASA's recently announced Lunar Gateway Program will be the platform to prepare and propel humans to Mars. To paraphrase Administrator James Bridenstine, Gateway will be the permanent lunar command module.

And in 2024 Gateway will facilitate the mission objective of Artemis 1 to land astronauts near the Lunar South Pole. But we can't get there from here; not without the ISS. The lion's share of onboard station research is aimed at solving long-term challenges for human survival in deep space. The ISS is the tethered ship from which astronauts will hone spacefaring skills to venture beyond the proverbial horizon.

In this new era of exploration, the ISS is allowing the right questions to be asked and answered. One could say that, to date, we have been consumed with identifying the limitations inherent in humanity's reach into space. Yet recently, we have begun to ask a more nuanced and intriguing question: What are the unique characteristics of the domain beyond Earth that we can use for our benefit?

Although the future of deep-space exploration is no more known today than it was in 1984, all that is certain is the ISS will be the launch pad for wherever humans go from here.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.