March 8, 2023
By SWOSU Press Release
Everett and Jeanetta Dobson of Edmond have made a major gift in support of Southwestern Oklahoma State University’s (SWOSU) National Aeronautics & Space Administration Human Exploration Rover Challenge (NASA HERC) Team for Academic Year 2022-23.
Each year the NASA HERC features an engineering design challenge to engage students worldwide in the next phase of human space exploration. The annual event, which SWOSU has participated in for more than a decade, is a more complex follow-up to the successful NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race. The competition challenges high school and college students to create a vehicle designed to traverse the simulated surface of another world. During it’s 20-year run, NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race engaged more than 10,000 students and demonstrated that these budding scientists and engineers were capable of complex work. The NASA HERC continues that tradition by providing an authentic engineering experience. Student teams design, build, and test technologies that enable rovers to perform in a variety of environments. The HERC inspires participants to become engineers and design NASA’s next-generation space systems.
Everett Dobson is a 1981 SWOSU graduate who was inducted into the SWOSU Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame in 1999. One of SWOSU’s most generous and longtime benefactors, Dobson has endowed the Everett Dobson Chairs in Business, Marketing, Management and Finance in the Everett Dobson School of Business & Technology at SWOSU and provided the private investment necessary to construct the Everett Dobson Golf Training Facility on SWOSU’s Weatherford campus. In 2015, Dobson was inducted into the SWOSU Presidential Order of Merit in recognition of his 25 years of service on the SWOSU Foundation, Inc. Board of Trustees where he served as Investment Committee chair.
“We are deeply grateful to Everett and Jeanetta Dobson for their generous investment in the 2023 SWOSU NASA HERC,” said SWOSU President, Dr. Diana Lovell. “This is a one-of-a-kind enhanced learning experience for our SWOSU students, which is only made possible thanks to philanthropic partners like the Dobsons.”
For more information about the SWOSU NASA HERC team, please contact the SWOSU Department of Engineering Technology in the Everett Dobson School of Business & Technology at 580-774-3162.
Copyright 2023 Paragon Communications. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.
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