by C. R. Layton
It all started in the year 2000; my wife Beverly got the urge to find a group of her teenage friends from a long time ago. She began to search diligently and found five of her best friends. She contacted them and they got together for dinner. Beverly came home and told me that it was so much fun and all of them had never laughed so much. Beverly said I should try to locate some of my Air force friends. This gave me the idea of trying to get enough guys from my basic training flight for a 50th reunion in 2002. That would be Flight 394 of the 3700th BMTG at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. I have owned a computer since 1977 but knew very little about the Internet and how to successfully use the white pages. One of my best friends was Carl Lord from Tucson, Arizona. Carl and I were together thru Basic Training, Tech School at Sheppard, a year in the 55th at McClellan AFB than on to the 58th in Alaska. I found Carl living in Overgaard, Arizona., and phoned him. Carl was elated and said “why wait until 2002, why can’t we get together sooner, Mary and I will come for sure”. Carl also suggested that we try to find some of our buddies from the 58th WRS. That would be the 58th Strategic Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Fairbanks, Alaska where we spent two years. I mentioned the 55th WRS, Carl and I were there with Ray Lowe, Darril Hinton, Jim Buffalo, Joe Komornic and Ken Waldron. I have probably forgotten to mention somebody, but I hope not! You might want to ask Ray Lowe and Joe Komornic about our time in the 55th. We were all on the same orders headed for Alaska. We left from Parks AFB and San Francisco Bay on the USS Thomas Jefferson bound for Eielson Air Plane Camp as Bob Hope later called it at a USO Show while we were there. That trip is a story in its self which I titled “MY FIRST CRUISE”. I know that many of you had a great voyage just like it. Ken & Dot live just up the Turnpike from Tulsa and come here regularly to see their “Doctors”. When they come we usually have lunch somewhere and Ken still likes to remind me about out scenic cruise up through Alaska on the narrow gauge railroad and about all the good food and how much fun we all had. (grin)
(back to the story)
The only reference I had of my buddies in basic was my photo album with our individual photos, luckily many of the guys had signed mine and most had written their home state by their name. Some of the guys were pretty easy to find. Andy Contos of Ohio still had his Special Orders 101 of our rifle range scores. This had the first, last name and middle initial of most of the guys, also their AF serial number. I learned quickly how to define the area of the USA that they were from by these serial numbers. Bad thing was, Andy sent these on the Internet and from a program that my Windows 98 didn’t recognize. The names were pretty well scrambled up. Not knowing much about my PC and how to change the text I could only decipher a few of them. Floyd West and John Zumo both had their copies of the Special Orders and sent me copies through the US mail. Then I really began finding a lot of the guys.
About this time, I had written a letter to Darril Hinton, who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Darril called his ex-wife Peggy Voglesing, in California and gave her my e-mail address. I was Darril’s best man at their wedding in Sabetha, Kansas in early 1953 while we were in the 55th SWRS in Sacramento, CA. Peg ask me to help her get up a reunion of the guys that were good buddies in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1953-1955. Shortly after this Peg had a light stroke and said it was all up to me that she could not do anything. As I began finding some of the guys, all were anxious to get together and did not want to wait until 2002. We wound up with 21 on the Reunion Roster, a mixture of Flight 394 from Lackland and the 58th guys from Alaska. We held that reunion in Branson, MO. May 30-31 calling it the “Air Force Buddies Reunion”. We discovered that it didn’t matter which group you were from, because we were all in the same Air Force for one common goal. It was exciting to meet these guys and renew our acquaintance after almost 50 years. We stayed at the Melody Lane Inn and had a great time together. We had scheduled the dinner show on the Showboat Branson Belle and the Shoji Tabuchi show.. Many more would have come but had prior commitments, like weddings, graduation, golf tournaments, etc. When parting time came everyone agreed they wanted to do it again in 2002 and ask if we could make it longer.
When I returned home from this reunion I had a letter in my mail box from an old 58th friend, Ed Keenan. Ed sent me a photo of 4 of us that came down the Alcan Highway together (it is in the program). I had given Ed my Mother’s address in Tulsa and he remembered, and found me in the white pages. Ed had also started trying to find some of the guys. Ed and his better half Stephanie came to our next reunion, and check this out! Ed still had all his orders from the USAF including the 58th. This really opened the door to finding more of the guys. As I began to locate guys, nearly all were really excited that some one after all these years was doing this. Some of the responses that came from the other end were really great. Things like, “Hell yes, how could I ever forget you Layton”, or “my gosh, I haven’t heard that name Conrad since 1955”. I have often wished that I had recorded all of responses that I got, it would have made a great tape. Guys would say, “have you found so and so or I have been keeping in contact with so and so”. I would take these leads and usually find a good percentage of them. Several of the guys I found indicated that they still had their orders, Francis Bishop, Roger “Pockets” Cole, Dick Hollers, Ben Horton, Bob Stowers, Jim Patek and I’m sure a few more sent copies of orders to me.
We held the 2002 Reunion June 12-14 again in Branson staying again at the Melody lane Inn. There were 27 of us in attendance with 20 having to cancel out for medical reasons mostly. We had two shows scheduled, the Shoji Tabuchi Show again and the Dixie Stampede, but 25 out of out 27 wanted to see a show that first night. Beverly got busy and found us another show that would give us a group rate. It was the Lost in the Fifties show, which turned out to be a good selection. I would recommend it to anyone.
The 2003 Reunion was held at the Savannah House in Branson. It sounds like we have a thing going for Branson right! Well actually that is where the large majority of our folks want to go. There were 58 of us that year, with 3 couples having to back out after they had already sent their money and all their reservations had been made. Luckily we were able to recover most of their money. You’ve heard the term “The more the merrier” well turns out that really is true, we really had a good time. We returned again to the Showboat Branson Belle for their dinner show and saw the Magnificent Seven at the White House Theater, it was another dinner show. On the day us guys got together by ourselves, my wife Beverly took the ladies to the “Hard Luck Diner” for lunch and went to ride the Ducks. For our elective first night we all went to see the Paul Harris Show. Paul Harris is a well known “Cowboy Comedian” and has a very good show.
The 2004 Reunion is being held, once again in Branson on June 9, 10 and 11th of June, at the Savannah House. We have 2 shows scheduled again this year and at this time it appears that it will be the biggest ever. At the time of this writing we have 35 rooms reserved and are still getting calls from guys wanting to know if they can still come to the Reunion. I ask Beverly to call and see if we can get more rooms. I never dreamed it would get this big. I sincerely hope we can keep it going.
4/20/04
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