Each took 22 years to accomplish a dream of a lifetime last week.

Barry Bonds reached his goal to claim the Major League Baseball record Tuesday night when he launched career home run No. 756 over the right-center field fence at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. But the 435-foot blast and another one into San Francisco Bay the following day pale in comparison with former Idaho teacher Barbara Morgan’s accomplishment.

At 3:36 p.m. Wednesday, Morgan and six other astronauts shot straight up for 120 miles aboard the shuttle Endeavour as NASA redeemed the promise it made two decades ago to re-launch the educator-in-space program. Like Bonds, Morgan’s achievement is an example of the role patience and persistence play in pursuit of a seemingly unachievable goal. Like Bonds, she will forever be viewed as a hero by many.

Unlike Bonds, who was dogged by questions of steroid abuse as he chased the record, there won’t be an asterisk after Morgan’s name.

Many of us remember where we were Jan. 28, 1986, when we heard the shuttle Challenger had exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing its crew of seven, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, the only person in front of Morgan in NASA’s educator-in-space program. They had trained together for six months. They were friends. Since that time, Morgan has waited for her chance to continue her friend’s legacy. She returned to McCall to teach until 1998, when she was invited to become a full-fledged astronaut. She’s now 55.

Many would have given up on the dream to soar above the clouds and tinker with multimillion-dollar gadgets such as the 100-foot robotic arm and extension boom. Morgan didn’t, and she helped operate that equipment to inspect minor shuttle damage Thursday.

“That’s the first valuable lesson here: Persistence pays off,” said Gayle Moore, a former teacher who now works for the Idaho Education Association and watched the launch from the space center. “Stick with your dream and don’t give up.”

Morgan’s rocket ride offers another valuable lesson along the same line: Neither profession nor gender, neither upbringing nor residence, neither age nor anything else should get in the way of a goal. Morgan hails from Idaho, which isn’t considered a hotbed of educational innovation. In fact, some Idaho legislators view public educators and the Idaho Education Association as unnecessary evils.

Yet, Morgan showed Idaho children that they don’t have to be shackled by shallow thinking and partisan politics. Cosette “Coco” Roberts, of Kellogg, and 17 other Gem State youngsters will question Morgan and other astronauts Tuesday via a NASA downlink from Boise’s Discovery Center of Idaho.

The children, incoming fifth- through ninth-graders, will join Morgan in the international spotlight that the shuttle flight has focused on Idaho. Each child will ask one question. Each will be transformed by his or her encounter with space.

In the greatest lesson of her fruitful education career, Morgan is teaching youngsters in Idaho and around the world to reach for the stars.