STREATOR - St. Anthony Catholic School in Streator sports a banner that says "St Anthony, the School that Saved Pluto."

The school's children mounted a letter-writing campaign in 1990, the last time the International Astronomical Union formally debated stripping Pluto from the list of planets. Today's schoolchildren and at least one teacher still believe that effort helped save the planet discovered in 1930 by their hometown hero, Clyde Tombaugh.

"We had huge media coverage. It was such fun," said Sheila Brockman, a teacher at the school who led her science class in the letter campaign.

Her daughter, now a senior in high school, was in that class. When she heard that Pluto's status was being questioned again this week by the astronomical union, she asked her mother, "What are you going to do about it?"

Others asked Brockman the same question, so she searched for a Web site so she could e-mail the astronomical union to remind them Pluto had fans in Streator.

Her argument, although it used scientific reasoning, was more of civic pride than science, she admitted.

"We didn't want him (Tombaugh) to be forgotten. He was the only American to discover a planet," she said Tuesday.

Astronomer pleased too

The efforts on Pluto's behalf also please David Levy, a famed astronomer and author of more than 30 books, including "Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of Planet Pluto." He has discovered or co-discovered dozens of bodies, including Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which struck Jupiter in 1994.

"I'm delighted," Levy said in a telephone interview from his home in Arizona.

"Clyde would have loved to know that he not only discovered Pluto but also discovered the first double planet," he said, referring to the fact that Pluto and its moon, Charon, both would be counted as planets under the latest proposed definition.

They would count as a double planet because the center of gravity would be between them, meaning they orbit the sun and each other. Earth and its moon wouldn't count as double planets, even though the moon is large enough, because the moon orbits Earth, not the sun.

Levy attended the launch in January of the New Horizons space probe to Pluto. Also there was Tombaugh's widow, Patricia Tombaugh, 93, and other members of the family.

Included were some of Clyde Tombaugh's ashes.