Mission Accomplished!

Several months ago I posted a piece entitled The Best Part of My Job about introducing our dear friend bassist Christian McBride to one of our most prominent UR alums, astronaut Leland Melvin. As you recall, Leland was getting ready for his first mission to space and he promised he was going to bring a Christian McBride CD with him.

Well, we proudly watched Leland's launch on February 6, 2008 and cheered his safe return to earth on February 20, 2008 after a successful mission to deliver the European space lab. In fact, Beverly Bradshaw, our indispensable administrative assistant actually attended the launch at Cape Canaveral as Leland's guest and had great stories to tell when she returned to Richmond.

Leland called us earlier this week to thank us for our support and to tell us he had sent Christian McBride the photos you see here (courtesy of NASA) proving that he did, in fact, "Take Christian McBride's music into space!"

Enjoy! Leland we are so proud of you! And McBride, remember who loves ya' baby!

kp