NNOA Youth Day
July 24, 2009
The NNOA held a hands-on event for more than 100 kids to give them an up close look at naval aviation. The kids were also able to tour the Texas Raiders hangar next door and see the latest progress on their B-17.
The National Naval Officers Association (NNOA) actively supports the Sea Services in recruiting, retaining, and developing the careers of minority officers. The NNOA provides professional development and mentoring for its members. The NNOA continues to establish and maintain a positive image of the Sea Services in minority communities and educational institutions.
The NNOA held their annual conference in Houston last week and as part of the conference, they always sponsor a Youth Day. The Youth day event for this year's conference started Friday morning in Galveston where the kids and young adults were treated to a SAR demonstration by the Coast Guard and a tour of the USCG assets at Scholes International Airport. After the morning event and a lunch, the Youth were being bused from Galveston to the 1pm event.
On Friday morning Million Air line personnel moved the Marine Aviation Museum aircraft in front of the 1940 Air Terminal Museum and then the wait began. The two Navy T-44A's showed up around 12:30 pm and Houston Airport System security personnel also arrived in advance of the buses so we were prepared. The three tour buses finally arrived around 1:45 pm at the museum and it was quite a sight.
There were many planes on the ramp for the event, most coming from the "Rick Sharpe Air force", the Vietnam War Flight Museum.
The youth were split into four different groups and Million Air provided shuttles to and from the B-17 hangar so that the groups could be doing different things. One group was always out on the line receiving tours of the T-44A's and looking at the static display aircraft, another group was at the B-17 getting a brief lecture and tour from Larry, and the remaining groups were in the 1940 Air Terminal Museum looking at the historic artifacts and collections inside. It took until after 3:30 pm before all of the groups were rotated through the various displays.
In my opinion, we ended up providing the NNOA Youth Day group with a better experience than what they would have received at the originally scheduled venue, had it not cancelled. - Brad J. Primm, General Manager of Million Air Houston
