“He killed our baby!” Steele Leblanc exclaimed flailing his arms at his partner, Manuel Granados, who was too cold to respond. In Steele’s hands was a foot long red and black model rocket that took weeks to make.

With bright red noses and numb fingers and ears the 2^nd period ROTC class took their midterm exam.

“This is our rocketry program. This year we’re teaching space exploration,” Lt. Colonel Marks said.

For their midterm, the class launched rockets that they had worked on for many weeks.

“We worked on it for months. All semester and we were disappointed,”  senior Manuel Granados said.

There were about 12 rockets that took off.  The class stood on the side guided by Lt. Colonel Marks watching the smoke fill the air as the rockets launched into the blue sky when the countdown came to a close.

“It’s a lot of fun, it’s a lot of learning. We need to do some work on the rocket though,” junior Malachi Guerrero said.

Cheers and sighs of sorrow were heard depending on whether or not the parachute in the rocket opened and landed peacefully or crashed in the trees. The guys on the field rushed to save the parachutes to prevent them from crashing into the trees and getting damaged.

“Picking up the rockets was the fun part,” Freshman Joey Welsh said. “But I think every job was equally important.”

The group consisted of 3 people. One pushed the button to launch the rocket, the other one went to retrieve it and then the third one would count down and set it up. And all of them worked on making it pretty by either painting the rocket “red and black because we’re Langham Creek,” or putting on dinosaur stickers to “remind us of how cool dinosaurs are.”

The rockets would eventually all streak off, leaving a firework-like smell.

“It seems like a lot of fun. I’m excited because I know we have the best rocket. But it’s too cold to be doing this today,” sophomore Sebastian Hernandez said.

Standing in the cold was completely worth seeing the rockets’ red glare take off and eating donuts. Overall it was a fun experience for everyone involved. Even at the end when everyone was huddled up and Sebastian yelled “Huddle! Not cuddle!”