Colonel (Retired) Melvin ‘Mel’ Bryant was a fighter pilot who served during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was born in Hiawatha, Kansas in 1924 and spent his childhood working on family farms and in his father’s grocery store. Despite his farming roots, Mel...
Colonel Kim N. Campbell was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. At a very young age, she had a strong passion for wanting to fly and at 12 years old, she aspired to make her dream a reality and joined the Civil Air Patrol. By the age of 16, she had accomplished her first solo...
James G. (Snake) Clark, born in Carney, New Jersey, is a 1973 graduate of the Catholic University of America Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) and who served as a USAF officer and F-4 pilot, retiring at the rank of colonel in 2001. He has been...
Lt Col Samuel “Sam” Galloway was born 2 June 1947 in Milan, Tennessee. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1969, with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering; the first in his family to obtain a college degree. Galloway enlisted in the Air Force on 20...
Col “Bubba” Jenny entered the Air Force in 1964. During his 28-year career as a fighter pilot, Bubba flew over 5,000 hours in 10 different aircraft including the F-100, A-7, A-10, F-16, and F-117. Bubba was one of the few Misty pilots of Vietnam and, like many of his...
Lieutenant General Michelle D. Johnson achieved many historical firsts such as being the United States Air Force Academy’s first female cadet wing commander; the Academy’s first female Rhodes Scholar; the Academy’s first and only female inductee into the National...
General (ret) John P. Jumper was born on February 4, 1945, in Paris, Texas. As the son of an Air Force fighter pilot, he moved around constantly before completing his senior year of high school at Hampton, Virginia. Jumper earned his commission as a distinguished...
History celebrates firsts, and Major General Jeannie M. Leavitt has achieved many historical firsts as the United States Air Force’s (USAF) first female fighter pilot, first female fighter aircraft weapons officer, first female fighter wing commander, and the first...
Major Heather “Lucky” Penney was one of the first female pilots to go directly into fighters from pilot training and was the first female fighter pilot in the District of Columbia Air National Guard. Heather Penney was born into aviation. Her father was an A-7 pilot...
Maj Gen Donald W. Shepperd was born in San Antonio, TX in 1940 and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1962. After graduation and pilot training, he was assigned to a fighter squadron in West Germany. After five years in the Air Force, Shepperd deployed to...
Lt Col Russell E. Tharp was born 8 February 1946, in the small town of Yale, Oklahoma. He went to Oklahoma State University. It wasn’t until he was in college that a friend asked if he would like to go flying. After this first flight in a Cessna 172, he decided that...
