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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today,
We answer a listener’s question about the American companyBoeing…
Play music nominated for the Tony Award …
And report about a student science contest.
Rocket Contest
HOST:
The world’s largest model rocketcompetition for secondary students was held May tenth in the easternstate of Virginia. More than eight-hundred teams took part intest-flight competitions throughout the United States. Thosecontests narrowed the number of finalists to one-hundred teams. ShepO’Neal has more.
ANNCR:
The National Association of Rocketry and the Aerospace IndustriesAssociation organized the competition. The student teams were askedto design, build and fly a model rocket. The rocket could not weighmore than about one-thousand-five-hundred grams at the time oftake-off. It also had to carry two eggs and an electronic distancereader during the flight.
To win the competition, the rocket had to travel at leastfour-hundred-fifty-seven meters into the air. At that height, aparachute needed to open to help slow the rocket’s fall back toearth. The two eggs had to land undamaged.
Students from Boonsboro High School in the eastern state ofMaryland won the competition. The three-member team said luck and afew prayers had a lot to do with their success. The second placeteam was from Washington, D.C. A group of students from the westerntown of Edward, Colorado, came in third. The top five teams andtheir schools divided fifty-nine-thousand dollars in prize money.
Organizers designed the competition to honor the Wright Brothers’first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, one-hundred years ago.Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled, powered flightin history on December seventeenth, nineteen-oh-three. The eventlaunched a new industry for the world and a new business for thebrothers.
The organizers of the model rocket competition also hoped theevent would build student interest in technical professions, such asaerospace engineering. The head of the Aerospace IndustriesAssociation, John Douglass, says he expects many older workers inthe profession to retire in the coming years. This, he says, willcreate a demand for young minds needed to design and build newproducts. More importantly, however, Mister Douglass said he wantedstudents to learn that science can be fun.
The Boeing Company
HOST:
Our VOA listener question thisweek comes from Bentre Province, Vietnam. Nguyen Trong Tuyen wouldlike some information about Boeing — the largest aerospace companyin the world.
William Boeing started the company in nineteen-sixteen with thehelp of Navy engineer George Conrad Westervelt. At that time,twenty-eight people worked for the airplane maker. Today, thecompany employs more than one-hundred-sixty-thousand people inseventy countries.
Boeing moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago intwo-thousand-one. Last year, the company earned more thanfifty-thousand-million dollars.
Boeing has built fourteen-thousand passenger planes. It buildsseven different kinds. The smallest plane can carry aboutone-hundred people. The largest can hold over five-hundred. Boeingestimates that each day, three-million people fly on its passengerplanes.
Next year it plans to launch a new service for high-speed,Internet-based communication to airplanes in flight. Passengerscould use this technology to communicate over the Internet withpeople on the ground.
Boeing is also one of the top makers of military planes anddefense systems. The planes include tankers used to refuel militaryaircraft in flight.
The company also manufactures Apache helicopters and F-fifteenfighter planes. It has sold military aircraft to more than twentycountries.
Boeing is also involved in space technology. It builds andlaunches satellites. It helped create the International SpaceStation. And it manufactured NASA space shuttles.
Tony Awards
HOST:
On Sunday, June eighth, the Tony Award ceremony will honor thebest stage plays on Broadway in New York City. Shirley Griffithtells us about these awards.
ANNCR:
The Tony Awards are the work of a group called the AmericanTheater Wing. The group began as a way for theater people to help inthe war effort during World War One. It continued this work duringWorld War Two. Later, the Theater Wing helped returning soldiers. Itopened a school to train people to work in the theater. And it beganpresenting the Tony Awards to honor the best Broadway plays.
The award is named for Antoinette Perry, a producer, director andAmerican Theater Wing official. The name “Tony” is short forAntoinette, so the awards became known as the Tonys. The first Tonyswere given in nineteen-forty-seven.
The awards are presented to many people who work on Broadwayshows — actors, directors, set designers, clothing designers andmusic composers. Tony Awards are also given for best dramatic playand best musical play of the year.
This year, four shows arenominated for Best Musical. “Movin’ Out” is a story told entirelythrough dances performed to the music of Billy Joel, the Americansinger, songwriter and pianist. Here is the title song:
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Another nominated musical is the French play “Amour.” It is nolonger on Broadway. A third nominated musical is “A Year With Frogand Toad,” a play for children.
The final nominee for best musical is called “Hairspray.” Thisplay was first a movie. It is the story of an overweight teenagegirl living in the state of Maryland in the nineteen-sixties. Hereshe sings “Good Morning, Baltimore.”
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To hear more music from “Hairspray,” and learn more about theshow, listen this Sunday to the Special English program This isAmerica.
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
Our program was written by Jill Moss and Nancy Steinbach. Ourstudio engineer was Vosco Volaritch. And our producer was PaulThompson.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radiomagazine in Special English.