BIG STONE GAP Their students can call David Stallard and Rhonda Kilgore space cadets and get away with it from now on.

Stallard, a fifth-grade teacher at Powell Valley Middle School, and Kilgore, a marketing, government and leadership teacher in Scott County, have been selected to take a zero-gravity flight on Oct. 3 with commercial weightless operator Zero Gravity Corp. (ZERO-G) headquartered at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.

The Southwestern Virginia Technology Council and Masonic Lodge 208 in Big Stone Gap have spearheaded a regional effort to put area teachers on ZERO-G suborbital airplane flights that mimic the weightlessness of space, and Stallard and Kilgore are the first teachers from Wise and Scott counties selected. A number of other businesses, organizations and individuals have contributed to raising the funds.

The local effort caught on after Megan Seals, a Big Stone Gap native who now teaches fifth grade in Fairfax County, was sent by her school district on one of the flights. During ceremonies at Powell Valley Middle School on Tuesday, Seals told a rambunctious group of students it was a little “weird” to address the student body of one of her alma maters.

Kilgore said taking a space flight — or at least an almost space flight — was actually “one of those things” on her list of life’s goals “and now I can cross this off my list.”

Kilgore encouraged the students to make their own list of dreams and goals and strive to make them happen.

Kilgore’s sister, Ranessa Jessee, the chief clerk in the Wise County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office, said nobody in the family expected to see Rhonda in suborbital mode.

“It’s something I never would have expected her to do,” said Jessee. “But she is very, very, very excited.”

Wise County Circuit Court Clerk J. Jack Kennedy, secretary of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, organized Tuesday’s zero-gravity soiree and had the kids practically levitating with one of his remarks.

"Hopefully, there will be a time when we will be putting students on weightless flights, Kennedy said and challenged more businesses and civic organizations to help support the cause. From the reaction at PVMS on Tuesday, there would be no lack of volunteers.