It was in the mid-1960s when I started working for the Boeing Company in Huntsville. Honestly, I can say that Boeing was one of the best companies I ever worked for. The men who came to Huntsville from Boeing headquarters in Washington state were some of the friendliest and nicest people I have ever been around. They were very good to me.

It was a great honor to work for Boeing on the Apollo Program. If you worked and did a good job, you were well recognized for your efforts. I loved working for this company, so I worked very hard to do a good job. My responsibilities were in stores and receiving. We had a store with all types of electronics along with other kinds of materials in a warehouse at receiving. We were always in the process of learning more about the material we issued to the workers.

Everyone working for this company took a great deal of pride in what they did to help send a man to the moon. I feel that Boeing was a huge contributor for this milestone to take place.

During my years with Boeing, I received several awards. The cost saving suggestions I submitted included saving the company $10,335 for a swing arm store located at HIC. Another $5,167.50 was for material issued from store, and $2,738 for material store catalogs.

I also received several safety awards and was selected as safety award winner for the month of July, 1967. Safety was a high priority in the responsibilities they required of their employees.

Five men were nominated as the material candidate for the Huntsville operations Employee of the Year. I was one of the five. L. R. Drigger, operations manager, had this to say: “Sometimes an employee goes beyond expected performance on his job. Your ‘Do it right the first time’ performance during 1969 is to be commended.”

The one chosen employee of the year was one who well deserved it, a top machinist in our company. I was well satisfied to be runner up.

When the Saturn Five Rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, it was loaded with the Apollo 11 Spaceship and three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins. All televisions in the HIC building that Boeing occupied were on. All work came to a stop to watch. After liftoff, a huge roar of approval came from everyone.

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon and said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” the crowd jumped for joy. It was a great day for everyone involved on this project. All eyes continued to be glued to the television when they returned to their homes.

A few weeks later, everyone that had worked on the Apollo 11 Program received an ounce of moon dust in a plastic bag and a coin made from part of the spaceship that had been melted down to create them.

The Boeing Company worked on the lunar roving vehicle program. To my knowledge, we built the first mock-up moon buggy. It was a great thrill for me to know that some of the material I had handled had landed on the moon with that first mission.

It has been 50 years since this all happened. I have since learned that the 1 ounce of moon dust has a current value of $1.2 million. If I was a money-hungry person, I would now be very sad because I lost my bag of moon dust, though I still have the coin.

 

— Dale Lone Elk Casteel lives in the Coxey community, attended Clements High School and was preparing for his senior year when mobilized into active service in the Army in August 1950. When his class graduated, he was in Korea. He wrote his first story and book at age 70.