The Blaser Award was recently announced here in Gainesville. The Blaser award is gvein in memory of Russ and Carol Blaser, who died in an airplane crash off the coast of Cedar Key in 2002. The award is given to the best aeronautics related project at the Alachua County Science Fair, for both junior and senior divisions.
The winners were:
- Junior division: Gavin Gamble, for his project entitled “How Does Added Cargo Weight on a Model Rocket Affect Its Altitude?”
- Senior division: Christopher Fregly and Brandon Kim, for their project “Improving the Effectiveness of Squat Exercise on the International Space Station”
A bit of history: Russ Blaser was a pharmacy manager at Ayers Medical Center in downtown Gainesville and a past president of the Alachua County Pharmaceutical Association. He was born in New Jersey in 1944. He attended the University of Florida where he received a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 1976. A veteran of the Vietnam war, Russ also served as the commander of the Gainesville Composite Squadron of the United States Air Force Civil Air Patrol.
Carol Blaser was also born in New Jersey, and earned her degree in political science in 1989 at the University of Florida. She worked for Gainesville Regional Utilities and later for the City of Gainesville as a purchasing manager for the finance department.
The full details of the crash are on the aircrashed.com website.
