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John A. McCullough Jr., a 1983 BHS grad, is the lead Flight Director of the STS-115 mission that will begin assembling the space station again. There have only been 68 flight directors ever selected by NASA, dating back to the first Mercury missions.

McCullough, who now lives in the Houston area and works at Johnson Space Center, grew up on Manchester Drive and attended Applewood Elementary, Edwards Middle School and BHS. He wrote for the school newspaper, was a Scout in Troop 518, became a leader there and progressed to a Life Scout. His childhood included playing Pee Wee football, taking tae kwon do at Master Kim's and working at three local pizza places during high school.

McCullough graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1989 with a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering and a co-op education certificate.

He started at NASA after a co-op education tour, which included working in Houston several times for McDonnell Douglas on the Space Shuttle in the entry flight performance and ascent flight design areas, as well as in Long Beach, Calif., at Douglas Aircraft working on the horizontal tail analysis for the MD-80 series of passenger aircraft.

McCullough is married to the former Julie Ann Hrovat of Chesterland and has three children, Bryan, Jamie and Sarah.