A few houses up from the old Barq’s Root Beer bottling plant on Keller Avenue in Biloxi, a young Fred Haise learned the value of hard work long before the world knew his name.
Born on November 14, 1933, Fred’s dad worked in the boiler room at the Biloxi Veterans Administration Center, and as a 12-year-old during the summers, Fred often accompanied him to work and helped his dad in the hot boiler room. After school, he earned his own money delivering the Biloxi Daily Herald on a neighborhood paper route. What began as an after-school job soon became something more. Handling newspapers each day sparked an interest in journalism that eventually led Haise to become sports editor of his high school newspaper and earn a journalism scholarship to Perkinston Junior College, now Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
But few could have imagined that the same boy who once delivered newspapers through the streets of Biloxi would one day make front-page headlines around the world as one of only 24 people ever to travel to the Moon.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and forever changed human history. Monday marks the 57th anniversary of that historic Apollo 11 landing, making it a fitting time to celebrate one of Mississippi’s own pioneers of Space, Biloxi native Fred Haise.
But long before he became an astronaut, Haise envisioned a very different career.
At Biloxi High School, he served as sports editor of the school newspaper while also working part-time for the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald. Covering local news and athletics gave him firsthand experience in the newsroom, reinforcing his belief that journalism, not aviation, would shape his future.
That passion followed him to Perkinston Junior College, now MGCCC where he enrolled on a journalism scholarship. There, Haise continued writing as sports editor before eventually becoming editor of the student newspaper, the Bulldog Barks. His 1952 Perkolator yearbook also lists covering baseball among his sports covered, reflecting his continued involvement in sports.
By every indication, Haise expected his future to be spent chasing stories, not making them.
Then history intervened.
After graduating in 1952, and with the Korean War underway, Haise entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program, following advice from his dad. What started as military service soon uncovered a talent, and a passion, for aviation that would alter the course of his life forever.
The former sportswriter became a Marine pilot. That led to becoming an aeronautical engineer working on airplanes. The remarkable part is he had never even flown in an airplane before joining the Marines. But soon, the onetime want to be sportswriter from Biloxi would eventually find himself strapped into the lunar module Aquarius, orbiting the Moon aboard Apollo 13 on April 13, 1970.
What began as military service quickly became a passion. After earning his wings in the Marine Corps, Haise completed his engineering degree at the University of Oklahoma while flying with the Oklahoma Air National Guard. His engineering talent and exceptional flying ability eventually caught NASA’s attention.
In 1966, he was selected as one of 19 astronauts in NASA’s fifth astronaut class.
The former sportswriter was suddenly helping write one of America’s greatest chapters.
Haise’s defining moment came in April 1970 as lunar module pilot aboard Apollo 13, joining commander Jim Lovell and command module pilot Jack Swigert on what was supposed to be NASA’s third successful lunar landing mission.
Their destination was the Fra Mauro Highlands, where Lovell and Haise were scheduled to leave the lunar module Aquarius and explore the Moon’s surface. Had the mission gone according to plan, Fred Haise would have become the sixth person in history to walk on the Moon.
Everything changed on the evening of April 13.
Roughly 200,000 miles from Earth, an oxygen tank exploded inside the spacecraft’s service module, crippling Apollo 13 and forcing NASA to immediately abandon the lunar landing. The words, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” would become one of the most recognizable lines in spaceflight history.
Although the mission’s objectives had changed, Apollo 13 still completed its journey to the Moon. The damaged spacecraft successfully swung around the far side of the Moon, using its gravity to slingshot the crew back toward Earth. Haise reached lunar orbiting distance, but he never had the opportunity to descend to the surface he had spent years preparing to explore.
For nearly four harrowing days, Haise, Lovell and Swigert endured freezing temperatures, limited drinking water, dwindling electrical power and dangerous carbon dioxide levels while engineers at Mission Control worked around the clock to devise lifesaving solutions. The world watched anxiously as NASA turned what seemed like an impossible situation into one of the greatest rescue efforts in history.
Against incredible odds, Apollo 13 safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970. The mission never fulfilled its original goal of landing on the Moon, but it became one of NASA’s finest hours, a remarkable demonstration of teamwork, ingenuity and perseverance under unimaginable pressure.
A generation later, the mission found new life on the big screen. The 1995 Academy Award-winning film Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, Bill Paxton as Fred Haise and Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert, introduced millions of viewers to the courage of the three astronauts and the determination of the engineers who refused to give up on bringing them home.
Haise never became the sixth man to walk on the Moon. Instead, he became part of one of the greatest survival stories ever told.
Although Fred Haise never walked on the Moon, his career continued to shape the future of American spaceflight. He later commanded the Space Shuttle Enterprise during its historic Approach and Landing Tests, helping prove that the reusable spacecraft could safely glide back to Earth without engine power. After leaving NASA in 1979, Haise spent nearly two decades as a test pilot and aerospace executive before retiring.
Today, at 92 years old, Haise is the last surviving member of the legendary Apollo 13 crew. More than half a century after one of NASA’s most dramatic missions, he remains a living link to an era when Americans routinely pushed the boundaries of exploration.
His accomplishments have earned countless honors, but nowhere is his legacy celebrated more proudly than on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.
In Biloxi, an eight-foot bronze statue of Haise stands near the city’s iconic lighthouse overlooking the Mississippi Sound. In 2026, the city expanded that tribute by dedicating Fred Haise Landing and naming a stretch of U.S. Highway 90 the Astronaut Fred Haise Highway, ensuring that future generations will remember one of Mississippi’s greatest explorers.
One of Haise’s most memorable homecomings took place on a baseball field.
On July 31, 2021, Fred Haise returned home to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before a Biloxi Shuckers game at Keesler Federal Park. The evening celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13, with the Shuckers giving away commemorative Fred Haise bobbleheads to fans in attendance.
In many ways, it was a full-circle moment.
Nearly 80 years earlier, a young Haise had walked the streets of Biloxi delivering newspapers only a few blocks away, not far from the old Barq’s Root Beer bottling plant where he grew up. Now, the hometown paperboy who once dreamed of becoming a jouranlist stood on a baseball diamond being celebrated as one of the most accomplished Mississippians in history.
The journey from neighborhood paper route to the far side of the Moon had finally come home.
The monuments, the statue and even that ceremonial first pitch celebrate more than an astronaut. They celebrate a Mississippi kid whose remarkable journey proved that extraordinary stories can begin in the most ordinary places.
His path reminds us that the road to extraordinary places rarely begins where we expect.
Sometimes it starts with a paper route through the neighborhoods of Biloxi. Sometimes it starts in a student newspaper of a high school classroom. Sometimes it starts at a community college in Perkinston.
And sometimes, the young sportswriter covering the story grows up to become part of one of the greatest stories ever told, one that carries him all the way to the Moon.
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