The National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) announced on Friday that Pattonville School District’s chief communications officer Kelly Gordon, APR, was selected as a member of its 2022-2023 “35 Under 35” class, presented in partnership with Rhodes Branding. NSPRA's 35 Under 35 program recognizes school public relations professionals who are making a difference for their school districts or education-related employers.

The traditional National Signing Day took center stage on Wednesday as student-athletes from Pattonville High School were able to lock up scholarships and sign National Letters of Intent to continue their academic and athletic careers. 

Joined by their coaches, family and friends, 17 Pattonville High School student-athletes made a commitment to play a sport at the next level during an event hosted in the main gym on Feb. 1. 

Biomedical students in Jamie Jobe and Megan Kemper’s science classes learned from 13 graduate students from Washington University in St. Louis during a research showcase in the Pattonville High School library. 

“I have partnered with Dr. Spencer Lake's musculoskeletal research lab in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis for the past two school years,” Jobe said. “He received a grant from the National Science Foundation and part of that is to partner with high school students and expose them to biomedical research, and because of that, I have been able to take my seniors to Washington University to see research in action.”

Retired astronaut Robert (Bob) Behnken, Class of 1988, received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor from vice president Kamala Harris on Jan. 31. Behnken received the award for bravery in NASA’s SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2 (Demo-2) to the International Space Station in 2020. On May 30, 2020, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched to the space station, marking the first mission to launch with astronauts as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. As a space station crew member for 62 days, Behnken performed four spacewalks with former NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and contributed more than 100 hours to the orbiting laboratory’s scientific investigations. Behnken received the honor along with former astronaut Douglas Hurley. They are the first honorees since 2006 to receive this honor.