Now is the time to turn your eyes toward the heavens. I do that frequently, praying for more endurance each day, but that's not why I’m telling you now to look skyward. Mars is the current reason for my request.

The “red planet,” according to news reports everywhere, is closer to Earth than it has been in 60,000 years. The folks at The Weather Channel say it won't be this close again until 2287. So if you want to get a good look at our celestial neighbor, then find a telescope and go outside on a clear night.

For those of you who missed it, Dr. Lionel Crews of UTM's Department of Geology, Geography and Physics threw a great “Star Party” Saturday night at the Martin Recreation Complex. A nice crowd wandered through the dimly lighted park from 10 p.m. on to get a closer look at Mars and other stellar phenomena through three powerful telescopes Crews had set up. He also gave a short lecture on constellations and pointed one telescope for a while at a double star system.

Crews, according to an e-mail he sent Wednesday, is planning to have another viewing of Mars sometime during the next few weeks. This one will be held near the pond on campus and he will let the campus know the morning of the event. If possible, we will put it immediately on The Pacer’s Web site so that you can plan to go.

This isn’t the first “Star Party” Crews has held. He also had parties for last year's spectacular meteor shower and for a lunar eclipse.

Why should you care?

Because it’s important to understand space (you know, the final frontier), because our reach toward the stars has always been one of our dreams, and because it’s fun.

From earliest history, humans have stared at the sky, trying to make sense and meaning of the vast universe. Christians believe the three wise men followed a star to the birthplace of Jesus. Sailors followed the stars to reach their destinations. Astrologers charted the stars in an attempt to predict major events.

As toddlers, we heard “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and, to this day, I make a wish on the first star I see at night, even if the “star” is really a planet.

I had paid only scant attention to the news reports of how brightly visible Mars was until a couple of weeks ago, when I was driving home from my older son's school dance. As I drove down a deserted back road in Weakley County, I reached a clearing and glanced toward the east. There it was, beautifully alone in the sky. I slammed on the brakes and backed up to a dead stop in the road, pointing at Mars and telling both my sons, "Look, boys, it's Mars!"

They clambered out of their seat belts and leaned over to stare at the sky. Fortunately, we were quite alone, so no one cared that we weren't buckled up and were sitting still in the middle of the road. Even more fortunately, no one came along to run over us.

The rest of the way home, my sons kept peering out the windows and pointing out other objects in the night sky. They were fascinated, enough to chatter about Mars and stars all the way home.

Their joy in such a simple but wondrous sight took me back to the root of my fascination with space. In July 1969, when man first set foot on the moon, I was 9 years old and I watched the event on my family's black-and-white television. I may be middle-aged now, but that event was forever stamped clearly upon my brain.

The lunar landing led to my becoming an avid watcher of the first Star Trek, with Mr. Spock, Scottie and Captain Kirk, and with my desire to learn constellations and witness every eclipse that came along. In my 20s, I went to Oak Mountain near Birmingham, where I was working at the time, to see a comet. I also got to see Saturn's rings quite clearly that night.

I have followed the shuttle program and still have our Birmingham Post-Herald stories on the Challenger disaster. When Columbia exploded earlier this year, my heart broke again for yet another tragic loss of life in our quest to reach the stars.

So, if I could "have the wish I wish tonight," it would be to instill that sense of wonder and awe in each of you that I have felt so many times in my life.

Go see Mars. And if you go to the pond gathering, be sure to thank Dr. Crews while you're there for a truly special opportunity.

We need you!

Want to see your organization’s events and honors covered in The Pacer?

Send them to us. Please. Pretty please.

As I have perenially pointed out in my seven years at UTM, we are few and you are many. We cannot be everywhere to cover everything that occurs on this campus. So we ask that each organization designate a publicity officer, if you haven’t already done so, to send us information about your group.

All of our contact information is listed in this newspaper and on our Web site, pacer.utm.edu. You may submit your stories to us online, which is how we really would prefer to get them. Meanwhile, please understand that our job is to cover the news, whether it is positive or negative. We want a balance of news, and we know that lots of wonderful things happen on this campus. We just can’t cover all of them.

If we only cover the negative news, then we will become unbalanced in our coverage. If we cover only the positive news, then we will become a public relations vehicle rather than a newspaper.

This is where my students learn how to cover tough stories and become responsible journalists. It is a laboratory, but we work just as hard at making it a “real” newspaper as any of our colleagues do in the “real world.” This is also where my students learn to develop a thick skin and how to handle criticism, because we certainly get more criticism than we do praise.

We need your input, your voice and your stories. This is UTM’s student newspaper, so it’s supposed to be for and about you.

Try to have a great semester.

Please.

Tomi McCutchen Parrish is an instructor in the Department of Communications and wishes to chase tornadoes when she gets old. This week has been good practice for that.