Regents may offer tuition to Columbia pilot’s family

Jennifer Knight

Monday, March 17, 2003 | 8:44 a.m.

The children and widow of the pilot of the space shuttle Columbia may soon be eligible for a free college education in Nevada.

Cmdr. Willie McCool's parents teach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and that connection prompted Regent Doug Seastrand to suggest offering McCool's wife and three sons free tuition or scholarships to any higher education institution in the state. The Board of Regents is expected to approve the proposal Wednesday.

"Everybody across the United States and the world, their hearts were torn when they heard about" the Feb. 1 disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia and the deaths of its crew, Seastrand said. "A lot of people wished they could do something and we thought this was one way we, and all Nevadans, could help."

Willie McCool's mother, Audrey McCool, an assistant dean of research at UNLV's hotel college, said she appreciates the idea.

"I think it's a nice gesture and I think it's a nice thing that the Board of Regents want to do this for us," she said.

She said her grandsons may want to attend college in Nevada some day.

Willie McCool is survived by his wife, Lani, and three sons -- 15-year-old Cameron, 20-year-old Christopher and 23-year-old Sean, who is is in his last year of studies for an undergraduate degree.

In three prior cases, the regents have offered free college educations to families of deceased Nevadans.

Tuition benefits or scholarships were offered to the families of the four Thunderbird pilots who died in a crash at Indian Springs in 1982; to the families of two Nellis airmen who died in a Lincoln County air disaster in 1998; and to the family of University of Nevada, Reno police Sgt. George Sullivan, who was murdered in 1998.

Regent Jack Schofield, who was a War World II pilot, said he is happy to invest in the education of McCool's kids just as the GI Bill invested in his education long ago.

"To me, somebody who has given their life for the cause of freedom or for the United States of America like he did -- I just feel like we can't do enough," he said.