Astronaut Deke Slayton was born in Sparta on March 1, 1924. His parents, Victoria and Charles Slayton, lived on a farm in the town of Leon, and as a young boy he attended Leon School in this building, which now serves as the Leon Community Center. He graduated from Sparta High School in 1941 and entered the United States Air Force. As a B-25 pilot during World War II, he flew 56 combat missions in Europe and 7 missions over Japan. After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he joined NASA, became one of the Mercury astronauts in 1959, and later served as Director of Flight Crew Operations. In 1975, he made his first space flight as Apollo docking module pilot of the Apollo-Soyuz test project, resulting in the first meeting in space between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts.