By John Byron Turner, For Iron County Today
We celebrate a lot of events in Parowan, but there is one that is very unique compared to the other celebrations here. Every year, just before Easter, the 3rd and 4th graders at the elementary school are given an assignment that’s not found in any of their text books. 47 years ago, 3rd-grade teacher, Mr. Rex Burton, now retired, challenged the kids to wrap up a raw egg in any fashion they could dream up, so that the egg could survive a drop from the roof of one of the school buildings. Several people referred to Mr. Burton as an “innovative educator”. This tradition has endured since 1979, and this year’s contest was just held last week.
However, after the first 45 years of dropping eggs from a roof, and with the on-going construction of the new Field House, the competition needed to be moved, so, the school office was tickled to death when some folks from the Parowan Electric Department showed up and offered to lend their tall bucket trucks, known to many of us as cherry-pickers, so no-one needed to climb up on the roof any more. For the past 2 years, each teacher is now able to load all of their students’ egg packages into the service bucket and, along with a Power Department worker, they are lifted nearly 50 feet into the air from where they can bombard the kids with their own creations.
Some eggs were parachuted down, many were wrapped in multiple layers of bubble-wrap, some were boxed up in soft clothing and at least one was surrounded by balloons. All of them landed right in front of the students, who each rushed to claim their masterpiece. Once one classroom collected all their eggs, they would retreat over to the grass and take turns opening their packages, to inspect for damage. While all of that took place, another teacher repeated the egg drop for her class until all the eggs had plummeted to the pavement. As I walked around watching and taking pictures I roughly counted about 75% of the eggs survived intact, with only a few messy packages. Mr. Burton would surely have been pleased with those results.
Most 9- and 10-year-olds are not usually involved in, or enjoy, an engineering project, but Mr. Burton’s egg drop assignment has become a welcome challenge for the kids……you can see it in their eyes and on their faces, as their teachers launch their projects into the air, and they wait in anticipation to see the landing, and if their egg is still in one piece.
Over the course of 2 hours, 120 children and all the teachers, parents and siblings totaling over 200 onlookers, were entertained and engaged until the last package was opened.
After seeing all the dedication that went into this event, it seems to me that it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that somewhere in the near future one of these young students could be on the NASA team that helps put an astronaut and cargo gently down onto the surface of Mars, or be a part of an upcoming Artemis II mission, carefully landing tons of construction equipment and supplies on the surface of the Moon. Who knows, those supplies may even include fresh eggs for the crews.
