APOLLO 8 COMMANDER
∗ Born March 14, 1928 in Gary, Indiana
∗ Moved to Tucson at age 5 to help his chronic respiratory problems; attended Sam Hughes Elementary School; began flying lessons at age 15 at Gilpin Airport
∗ Played quarterback on Tucson High School football team, which won the state championship in 1945; graduated in 1946
∗ Earned bachelor of science degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1950; joined the Air Force and began flight training at Williams Air Force Base near Mesa in 1951; served as a fighter pilot in the Philippines, then as a flight instructor
∗ Returned to West Point in 1957 as assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics; joined the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1960
∗ Earned master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1957; completed Advanced Management Program at Harvard in 1970
∗ Selected in 1962 as part of NASA’s second group of astronauts; served as commander of Gemini 7 spacecraft in 1965, which spent a then-record 14 days in space and participated in the first space rendezvous with another craft (Gemini 6)
∗ Served as the astronauts’ representative on the review board investigating the Apollo 1 fatal fire in 1967; testified before a U.S. Senate committee and helped convince Congress that Apollo program should continue
∗ Commanded Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, the first manned spacecraft to escape the earth’s gravity and orbit the moon; famously read from the book of Genesis during a live TV broadcast in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve; crew was named Time magazine’s Men of the Year for 1968 for their triumphant pioneering mission that uplifted Americans’ spirits following a devastating year of turmoil
∗ Reportedly was offered command of the first lunar landing mission, but turned it down
∗ Served as special presidential ambassador on trips throughout the Far East and Europe, and a worldwide tour seeking support of the release of American prisoners of war in North Vietnam
∗ Retired from NASA and the Air Force in 1970 as a colonel
∗ Joined Eastern Air Lines, holding senior vice president positions from 1970 to 1975; elected president and chief operating officer, then chief executive officer, and finally chairman of the board in 1976; retired in 1986
∗ Returned to Tucson to live until 2006, when he moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and then Big Horn County, Montana
∗ Published autobiography, Countdown, in 1989
∗ Gave the commencement address to the 2008 graduating class at the University of Arizona
∗ Inspired the naming of Frank Borman Expressway in Gary, Indiana; Borman Drive in Wanaque, New Jersey; Borman elementary school for children of military personnel on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson; and Frank Borman elementary school in Phoenix
∗ Became the oldest living American astronaut with the death of John Glenn in December 2016