MARQUAND, Mo. — Students from Hannibal High School traveled to enjoy totality of the solar eclipse.
Ten students from the Environmental Club and their advisor Quintin Heaton went to southeast Missouri to watch the eclipse on the banks of the Castor River.
The whole trip started when Heaton knew he wanted to see totality at the start of the school year. He said that some of his Environmental Club members asked to go on a trip to see the eclipse.
“I was very leery at first, but I agreed to do it, so we knew we were going to do this back in September,” Heaton said. “It was interesting I wanted to have a more immersive experience than just drive down and see it. We were going to camp and do a canoe trip. My plan was if we’re going to drive three and half hours and it’s a cloudy day I don’t want them to miss anything.”
The only problem was even in October, Missouri State Parks were already booked for the eclipse. Luckily, Heaton found Castor River Ranch Campground in Madison County.
The students and Heaton left Sunday to get to the campground. Heaton said about 80% of the traffic heading south were from out of state like Iowa and Minnesota. It came to no surprise that there were people from out of state staying at the campground.
“The campground is close enough to St. Louis that during the day there were people from St. Louis, but the campers were from North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, so people traveled a long distance to be able to see the eclipse,” Heaton said.
Hannibal High School junior, Aurora Shepard said this is the second time she’s seen an eclipse — she saw the one in 2017 while in elementary school — but didn’t realize what a big deal it was.
“It’s pretty amazing actually, I didn’t realize the gravity of it when I was in elementary school,” Shepard said. “Now that I’m older and I can understand what’s happening and how eclipses typically fall in oceans or areas where people can’t get to, I feel like that was really neat.”
Shepard said leading up to the experience she was anxious because she knew it was going to be amazing. Then she and her classmates were able to enjoy more than four minutes of the total eclipse.
“Seeing totality for four minutes I think that was the most memorizing part of all, I got to watch what was happening. It was really surprising, I didn’t expect it to look the way that it did,” Shepard explained. “I have a few pictures on my phone, but they’re nothing compared to seeing it in real life. It was beautiful.”
She said the 4 minutes and 20 seconds went by so fast, but she wouldn’t trade them. In addition to the eclipse, students were able to observe Venus and Jupiter, weather changes, and bats coming out in the middle of the day.
During their time at the campground Heaton taught his students about eclipses. Something Shepard said was much more beneficial than learning from a textbook. Heaton said his goal was for his students to learn while having an amazing experience.
“As a science teacher I wanted to explain the process and the aurora you get from the solar flares and the solar wind that you see,” Heaton said. “Honestly, I just wanted them to get an experience that happens very rarely.”
Students who were able to go on the trip were Aurora Shepherd, Matthew Martin, London Haycraft, Neily Bryant, Samantha Higgins, Sophia Navarro, Nora Bryant, Paulina Damas, Rex Noland, Rory Heaton and Maddox Haycraft
The Environmental Club was able to go on the trip thanks to fundraiser where they sold Hannibal Pirates solar eclipse glasses. Heaton said the club sold out of glasses.
Shepard said she has a love for science and the eclipse helped solidify that. However, she plans to pursue a scientific path more focused on the Earth wants to go into conservation.
The next total solar eclipse won’t take place in North America until 2045.