Observatory rededicated in Ford's honor

As a student in Holton High School, self-described “nerdy kid” Zach Elliott said he had a hard time finding a place where he could “fit in.” Mike Ford and his science classes — particularly his space science class — gave Elliott what he was looking for.

“When I was in Mr. Ford’s class, I definitely felt like I fit in,” Elliott told an audience of about 100 who gathered at the Banner Creek Science Center and Ford Observatory southwest of Holton on Saturday, Oct. 26 to honor Ford’s commitment to bringing the stars closer to Jackson County and to rename the observatory in honor of Ford.

Elliott, a 2009 graduate of HHS who currently does information technology (IT) work at the science center, shared remembrances of the events that he experienced while a student at HHS and the science center, housed in a much smaller building, was known as Elk Creek Observatory.

“It was tiny,” Elliott said of the former observatory building, located north of HHS. “It was about the size of the room that we have the observatory in now for everything that you see here. But that was a really special experience, because we had a gigantic telescope that I and the others in my class were getting to do something with that no other high school kids in probably the world were getting to do.”

But it was Ford’s passion for astronomy and science that, as Elliott noted, will live on in the rededicated Ford Observatory, which was open on Saturday to show the public the fruits of his labor, even if cloud cover prevented a viewing of the night sky that was originally included in the evening’s agenda.

Ford, who died in 2023, and his wife, Karen, approached Holton school officials Elk Creek Observatory in 2000 with information on a grant they were seeking for the construction and equipping of the obsevatory with a 14-inch telescope, said former USD 336 superintendent Jerry Fuqua, also present for Saturday’s festivities.

“At that time, it was a $25,000 state grant, so I told them to go for it, which they did, and they came back three or four weeks later and told us that we’d gotten the grant,” said Fuqua, who was Holton’s superintendent of schools from 1990 to 2002. “He built a small observatory there at the football field, and that created a lot of interest in the community. We had other schools coming in.”

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