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Stephen Underwood inducted into prestigious Crown Circle

MAXWELL AFB, Ala. — Dr. Stephen S. Underwood of Birmingham has been named to Civil Air Patrol’s Crown Circle for Aerospace Education Leadership.

Underwood was inducted into the Crown Circle March 27 during the 2004 National Congress on Aviation and Space Education in Atlanta. Established in 1979, membership in the Crown Circle is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors bestowed worldwide in the field of aerospace education. This year’s three-day National Congress, now in its 37th year, presented the best practices in aviation and space education to educators from throughout the nation.

Underwood is an associate professor emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. There he pioneered the development of the aerospace education course as a three semester-hour credit elective for undergraduate and graduate students in education. During his career, he showed thousands of teachers-in-training how to spark their students’ interest in science and aerospace. “Teachers have a dynamic effect on their students,” Underwood said. “With hands-on aerospace activities, they can take children beyond the textbook pages and classroom walls.”

Underwood was project director of the UAB School of Education’s Alabama Hands-on Activity Science Program from 1993-2003. Presently he serves as a consultant to this program. He has presented more than 700 workshops and seminars for educators throughout Alabama, promoting his philosophy that science and aerospace education encourage FUN in the classroom.

According to Underwood, FUN means focusing on “(F) fundamental science concepts, (U) unique scientific investigation, and (N) the necessary role science plays in everyday life.” Underwood has also promoted aerospace education as a member of Civil Air Patrol, and has been a lifelong student of aviation and space history. “I want to encourage teachers to catch the vision and help students launch their own interests and hopes as they enter this second century of manned flight,” he said.

Underwood took his first plane flight in 1945 and has loved aviation ever since. Among his friends were pilots Glenn Messer and Frank Ryder, astronauts Joe Edwards and Doug Wheelock, and German rocket scientist Konrad Dannenburg. He has been a member of Civil Air Patrol since 1986 and through CAP has worked on aerospace projects with NASA, the FAA, and the U.S. Air Force. Among his most interesting projects has been the development of museum scavenger hunts for the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, and the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham.

Underwood is an Army veteran, having served in Japan and Korea in the 1950s. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Middle Tennessee State University and his doctorate from the University of Alabama. He has been a consultant and instructor for teachers throughout Alabama for a variety of Eisenhower grants funding science education.

Civil Air Patrol and the U.S. Air Force host the National Congress and its Crown Circle awards. CAP is the official Air Force auxiliary and is a nonprofit organization with almost 62,000 members nationwide. CAP performs 95% of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counterdrug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members take a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the almost 27,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for more than 60 years.

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