Stellar guy

Thousands of students have graduated from Henry D. Sheldon High School since it opened in 1963. But only one of them has traveled in a rocket at speeds exceeding 17,000 mph. Only one of them has floated in space.

Only one of them became an astronaut.

And, after finally achieving in April his lifelong dream of flying into space, Col. James P. Dutton Jr. came home Tuesday to thunderous applause from the more than 1,500 students at Sheldon who now walk the same hallways he did more than two decades ago.

“This is an awesome opportunity,” Sheldon principal Bob Bolden said, before introducing Dutton during a school assembly.

“How many kids, how many young adults, do you know who have the opportunity to have a national hero at their school? We do, because we’re Sheldon!” Bolden said, prompting the students to break into wild cheers.

Tuesday morning’s event was the first of several this week for Dutton, who now lives in Houston with his wife, 1988 Sheldon graduate Erin Ruhoff Dutton, and the couple’s four boys, ages 8 months to 12 years, who also are here this week. Dutton’s parents, James Sr. and Nita Dutton, who now live in Newberg, also attended Tuesday’s event at Sheldon, along with his brother, Jeff Dutton, a 1989 Sheldon graduate who now lives in Tualatin.

Col. Dutton, 41, will visit Meadowlark Elementary School today, where he attended in the 1970s, and Cal Young Middle School on Thursday.

“It’s always really special to share with any kids,” Dutton said. “But to come back to the schools you grew up in is really special.”

Dutton stands 5-feet-10-inches tall today, but back then he was better known as “little Jimmy Dutton,” and he began dreaming of becoming an astronaut as far back as he can remember. By the time he graduated from Sheldon in 1987 with perfect grades, and had been accepted at the Air Force Academy, those who knew him had little doubt he was on his way.

“He was an outstanding person,” said Carolyn Rayborn, who was a physical education teacher and assistant athletic director at Sheldon when Dutton attended. “You knew that he wasn’t going to let much stand in his way. And I wasn’t surprised at all when he was No. 1 in his class at the Air Force.”

Dutton was the pilot on NASA’s space shuttle Discovery when it launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 5. The seven-member crew’s 15-day venture to the International Space Station was a resupply mission to drop off more than 27,000 pounds of hardware, supplies and equipment, including a tank full of ammonia coolant that required three space walks. As pilot, Dutton’s job was working inside the space station, helping move its robotic arm to replace the ammonia tank assembly. It was one of the space shuttle program’s final missions as it ends later this year.

During a video presentation of the crew’s trip, Dutton described to the students what it’s like to blast into space — “like a bomb had gone off underneath us” — how it smells — “like burnt metal” — and what the Earth looks like from way up there — “absolutely incredible.”

After students had given him a standing ovation, Dutton was swarmed as if a rock star, posing with many of them for photographs and signing autographs.

“I’ve never met someone who’s gone to space,” said Stephany Miller, a freshman, who got her photo taken with Dutton and friend Stephanie Sterling, a sophomore.

“I thought it was really awesome because I’ve always wondered about space myself,” senior Dustin Luna said. “Sheldon’s on the map now for more than just our football program.”

In addition to serving as junior class president in 1986, editing the school newspaper and being named Future First Citizen of the Year in 1987 by the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, Dutton played football and baseball at Sheldon.

Despite his small stature, he was one of the hardest hitters on the football team, recalled Tom Bowen, who retired as Sheldon’s director of health and physical education in 1996 and was Dutton’s baseball coach at Sheldon. Bowen remembers Dutton as this “short little guy” who first tried out for baseball during his freshman year. One of Bowen’s assistants didn’t think Dutton had the right stuff to make the freshman team, but Bowen disagreed.

“No,” Bowen told the assistant. “There’s something about him. There’s just something there.”

Two years later, Dutton was playing second base for the varsity team and was one of the best hitters on a team that made it to the quarterfinals of the state playoffs, and to the state finals in summer league baseball.

“He just was a winner,” Bowen recalled. “He worked at it and worked at it.”

Bowen drove across the country two months ago with his partner, Jean Conklin, to see the space shuttle Discovery blast off in the predawn darkness of a Monday morning, with “little Jimmy Dutton” on board. Watching with the rest of Dutton’s family and friends from six miles away, Bowen was thrilled.

“To watch your second baseman from 1987 go off into space is really a spiritual experience,” Bowen said. “It’s not something you forget.”