Page 33 - Leisure Living Magazine Holiday 2016

The computer classes at the Erie County Senior Citizens Center are limited to six students, due to computer availability. Each student receives one- on-one assistance. One of Chris’ students calls the class “the brave ones” because all are risk-taking to learn something new! They are a proud group. The teachers are proud volunteers, too. And they get two for the non-price of one! What a bargain.
Service To Country & Students Dr. Harold Brown
By Jerry Mix
For the last four years, Dr. Harold Brown, who is 92 years old and lives on Catawba Island, has success- fully spearheaded efforts to bring the famed Tuskegee Airmen exhibit to Port Clinton’s Liberty Aviation Museum.
Brown skipped 2016 for the exhibit that includes one of the airmen’s famed P 51 airplanes and a trailer that includes displays on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen. However, Brown is currently looking at 2017 for the return of the plane and the trailer to Liberty Aviation Museum.
“It’s all about the kids,” Brown recently said. “This gives them something to look up to, plus it gives them
In his youth, Brown in front of the AT 6.
the history of the Tuskegee Airmen. Brown indicat- ed that the exhibit is part of school programs and includes 500-600 kids.
One of the exhibit’s phases typically includes a talk by Brown where he discusses his extensive background and highlights of what happened to him during World War II. He was a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-African American squadron of the Air Force that flew a host of missions and protected B-24s in their bombing missions during the war.
“I was a Red Tail fighter pilot,” Brown stated. “I stayed in for 23 years and retired as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force.” Brown flew a total of 30 missions during the war with two of those being particularly notewor- thy. OnmissionNo.12,hecrashlandedhisplaneover friendly territory but, wasn’t that lucky on mission No.
30. While flying over Austria, Brown’s plane was knocked down and he was forced to bail out. He was captured and then spent the last two months of the war in a German Prisoner of War camp. “I came home at age 20, too young to vote and too young to have a drink in a bar,” he said.
Brown has had a long, and colorful life in the Air Force and then as a teacher and school administrator, but in recent years he has spent a lot of time raising funds for various Tuskegee Airmen projects. “It’s an expensive deal,” Brown said as he referred to the trips to Liberty Aviation Museum. He pointed out that his wife Marsha Bordner and he raised the nearly $15,000 a year it cost to bring the Tuskegee exhibit to Port Clinton. When it came to raising the money, Brown said, “We have an awful lot of friends up here.”
These days, Brown spends a lot of his time golf- ing. “Today, I have a 30 handicap and shoot from the women’s tees” he said. In the past, Brown was a bogey golfer with an all-time low score of 82.
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