Lots of changes after the AOG e-mail blast, most entered (pictures corrected, 20+ "homeless" have squadrons identified. Down to only 47 unknowns.

Added Joe Ross to War Heroes (thanks to Bob Foerster). Asso, many changes are on deck after the AOG e-mail blast announcing the site. All have been recorded and will be handled after we have sorted out any conflicting information.

Note that some CS have changed logos since our days and I believe we have located all the original ones as we knew them. TODO list additions: (1) add all original logos, (2) add logo histories.

Pictures and text are now under better control: (1) they should look evenly spaced and centered in rows and columns, (2) text under pictures is smaller, and (3) names are now in red instead of underlined to indicate a "memory" popup is available.

Site now has a "memory" popup for the 19 classmates listed on the USAFA AOG War Memorial

See listings for all together in new War Heroes category at the right.

Site now has a "memory" popup

If you check out Pete Dalton, CS-24, notice his name is in red text. If you hover the mouse cursor over his name you should see a popup that tells you to click on his name to see a "memory" popup for snippets from classmates or others who knew Pete. Send any such snippets to me and I can incorporate them onto the site.

Note: The plan is for you to be able to enter such things yourself when the wiki gets going.

New aid for old eyes looking for errors

Bill Peavy has been poring over the '62, '63, and '65 editions of the Polaris trying to find errors and fill data voids. His work thus far is in the MS Excel workbook in this file: names-62-pages.xls. If you don't have MS Excel, I highly recommend the excellent, free, and comparable Libre Office which will open the workbook just fine.

Another situation

Howard Hill mentioned another category of individual as a candidate for this site: ones who joined the cadet wing (i.e., passed BCT) but left honorably before getting the fall picture thus were not in the '62 Polaris. I believe they ought to be handled just as for Lawrence Paul (see below). Suggestions welcome.

Who is it really?

Tom Plank notes that "Tim McConnell," CS-10, looks like someone else. Positive ID of that picture anyone?

Bill Peavy thinks J. T. "Robinson" should be J. T. "Robison" based on study of several years of the Polaris. He also seems to be in CS-12 (so added). Can any CS-12 members (or J.T.R. himself) confirm correct name spelling?

Mystery men

The following men are listed on the AOG site as deceased members of the Class of 1995 but we don't have any pictures of them. Any additional info or suggestions about how to handle them is apppreciated.

• Lawrence Paul (Collective memory says he died in T-33 plane crash during BCT.) I suggest we have his roommate from BCT, if he's still around, adopt him into his CS. In lieu of that, we're open to suggestions, but consensus is that he should have a place on the site here. The AOG will be providing us with class data from their archives, including family contact info where available. Perhaps that will lead to something concrete.

Latest changes

1. Pictures of T.T. and C.P. Wheeler were swapped in 1962 Polaris; also a 3-way caption switch corrected as: Zucker => Zurbrugg, Zurbrugg => Wamsley, Wamsley => Zucker (caught by Bill Peavy and confirmed by class Historian, Jerry "Eagle Eyes" Wilkowski).
2. Update from "Gone but not forgotten:" Donald M. Douglas, CS-09.
3. Bill found that C. L. Brazie was named "Beazie" in '63 Polaris and on CS-14, but indexed as "Brazie". We've added him to CS-14 unless someone corrects the entry.
4. Brandon Hanniffy, added to CS-20
5. W. S. Morris, added to CS-20
6. We now have 731 classmates not counting Lawrence Paul. I'll add him after we have an idea of how best to handle him. One of his BCT mates should offer a CS home for him, and we should try to get a picture of some sort.
7. Larry Arnold, added to CS-02
8. Alfred Jacox, Jr., added to CS-18
9. Ted Lynn, added to CS-10)
10. W. C. White added (squadron unknown)
11. Harry Harrison found Pete Dalton's date of death from the Social Security Admin online death list (no wonder we have so much SSAN fraud!)
12. Down to 78 guys with no known squadron affiliation thanks to updates and corrections from Jock, Howard, Mike Keefe, Tom Plank, and Bill Peavy. Jock and Tom updated some double-squadron listings.
13. New advisors on board: Jock Patterson, CS-17; Howard Hill, CS-20; and Tom Plank, CS-10
14. new page with pictures of known deceased classmates and dates of death (updated from AOG list)
15. black border around pictures of known deceased classmates, white border otherwise
16. all pictures have been final cropped

See new link to pictures needing squadron affiliation at right. See table at end for progress details.

From: Tom Browder, CS-24 <tom.browder@gmail.com>

To all my classmates:

First, thanks to Bill Peavy for help with whatever I need, especially the painful chore of precise scanning--all depends on that.

And thanks to reviewers' comments: Bob Giffen, Scotty Schafer, Lee Allgood, Bill Peavy, Joy Flake, John Rademacher, Missy Browder, Roy and Benita Bridges, and Kurt Gray (my son-in-law).

The current, immediate goal is to identify all classmates by cadet squadron as of the fall of 1961.

Bill reminded me that I should mention the possibility that some guys may have started in one squadron and then transferred to another by graduation. Lee Allgood, CS-24, is a case in point. I put him with us for the Fall 1961 picture just because I never planned to do any of the years after 1961. To me that is the starting point and includes all who made it through basic summer and all who were there at the end. What happened after 1961 is another story and all have been welcomed at reunions. Anyhoo, Lee (or anyone else) can be put wherever they want to be--even in more than one place.

Check the links to the right--all should work and the squadron pages should show the proper squadron logo. But some pics are not final there yet because they have blemishes that will be fixed eventually when I learn how to fix them with gimp (and you haven't given me the squadron associations for them)!.

Progress on the immediate goals is shown in the table below. Notice the squadron count is going up. We have started going through the 1963 Polaris and using that grouping to assign squadrons. Now you should see pictures in all squadrons with some, like Lee Allgood, are in multiple squadrons.

We need error checks, criticism, and suggestions:

1. check carefully for name and picture errors (we have found many in the 1962 and 1963 Polaris)
2. criticize the pictures (pictures on the page edges are sometimes not the best; after trial and error we decided that 1200 dpi tifs were the best that we can do; we know we will redo at least some)
3. identify your doolie squadron and as many of the guys in it as possible
4. give me the nickname by which each guy was usually called (no gross remarks wanted!)
5. make suggestions--format, content, and anything else you think of (I'm trying to get essentially the same look with IE 8 and Firefox, but I primarily use Firefox and that will get first priority; for example, I know this list doesn't look good at all in IE, but I will try to fix it later)

The long-range goal is to provide a wiki for us, and possibly our families, to do whatever you want to do with it.

Watch for the forthcoming wiki for the USAF Academy's Class of 1965, and especially Cadet Squadron 24.

Kurt noticed that the height of pictures on the montage is not even--my montage-generating algorithm has a bug which I'm working on.

Progress notes:

1. Bill and I agreed that J. T. Ardapple (in memoriam, p. 198) should be included.