By Misty DUPLESSIS

For most of her life you might say that Girl Scout Kate Linkchorst has had her head in the clouds – or at the very least, among the stars.

Linkchorst’s father Fred is an aerospace engineer and early on the Girl Scout discovered her own fondness for gazing at the heavenly bodies. Deciding on what to do for her Gold Award project and thinking about how lucky she was to have grown up learning about stars, Linkchorst decided to share her love of star gazing with the community by hosting two astronomy workshops.

The first workshop was in May and featured her dad. He gave children and their parents the chance to participate in satellite demonstrations, learning about what satellites do and how they are an important part of space exploration.

“It went really well. Kids that went loved it and parents loved watching their kids enjoy it,” Linkchorst said.

The next star gazing workshop is this Saturday, June 30 between the hours of 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church, 2902 Montrose Ave. in La Crescenta. Visitors will have the opportunity to get hands-on astronomy experience as they learn about planets, constellations and other mysteries of the universe. JPL employee Lynn Repath-Martos will also be attending, talking about JPL’s involvement with space.

While the community reaches another level in its knowledge of the stars, the Girl Scout will reach another level in her Scouting career. After the second workshop is complete, Linkchorst will earn the distinguished Girl Scout Gold Award.

The Gold Award is the highest earned award that a senior or ambassador Girl Scout can achieve and signifies leadership, imagination, character and efforts in making the world an even better place.

Thirteen years ago, Linkchorst started as Daisy in the Girl Scouts and as a member of Troop 286, she has enjoyed all the lessons she learned along the way.

For the star gazing workshops, she received the support of her family, but was in charge of the project herself from conception to execution.

“Kate has done this whole thing by herself,” said Linkchorst’s mother Joanna. “She created it; came up with the crafts; created the activity book; researched and chose stories to read to the kids; designed and made signs; designed the fliers, contacted the schools, copied them and got them to each school in the Crescenta Valley.”

Linkchorst welcomes the community to join her on Saturday to gaze upward and learn of the stories among the stars.