Fort Worth ISD graciously financed my attending the ASP meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota in July.  The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (www.astrosociety.org) was founded in 1889 by a group of Northern California professional and amateur astronomers after joining together to view a rare total solar eclipse.  The ASP's earliest purpose was to disseminate astronomical information - a mission which has flourished with astronomers' inexhaustible exploration of the universe.  The ASP has become the largest general astronomy society in the world, with members from over 70 nations.  The ASP's Annual Meeting moves from city to city around the U.S., bringing a weekend astronomy expo, teachers' workshops, and scientific symposia to a new audience each year.  The ASP has also developed into the recognized leader in the field of astronomy education. Their free teachers' newsletter, The Universe in the Classroom, is distributed quarterly to over 10,000 educators worldwide.  With the support of the National Science Foundation and NASA, the ASP sponsors Project ASTRO, an innovative program to pair amateur and professional astronomers with teachers and classes.

Saturday and Sunday were the Astro Exposition and General Lectures -- lots of booths of great products and freebies, receptions, mixers, and the awards banquet.  One of my old buddies, Jim Hill, from the NSF workshops at Harvard-Smithsonian "SPICA" Project ('92), NRAO AT Greenbank, WV ('93), and AAVSO at Cambridge, MA ('94) received the Brennen Award for Outstanding High School Teacher of Astronomy.  He has built a "Post Henge", a Stonehenge made of posts, at his observatory in Mississippi.  Check out on his web-site all the fantastic things he has done at his observatory almost single-handedly: rainwater.astronomers.org

Monday and Tuesday were the 2-day Teacher Workshop and the Chandra X-ray Symposium.  I split my time between the two.  The Chandra X-ray Satellite was launched July 24, 1999 and has collected amazing images since.  These High Energy guys were "high energy" - sharing their research with each other.

My own workshop, "Observational Astronomy and Ancient Sky Lore", (the one I practiced on you guys at our February meeting), was successful--standing room only and an enthusiastic group, asking lots of questions.  The two directors of the ASP teacher workshop, Andrew Fraknoi and Dennis Schatz, were in the room.  Andy came up afterwards and said the "Jack and Jill in the Moon" activity (which my students and I developed over the last two years) was great and he wanted to know more about it.  Made me feel good!

Made contact with some wonderful "star people":  David Levy, James Kaler, Virginia Trimble, Jeanne Bishop, Mary Kay Hemingway, Russ Harding, Seth Shoshek, Edna DeVore, Mike Bennett, to name a few-- and of course, our own Linda Krouse.