Hundreds of veterans and their guests are set to descend on the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center for the 16th annual 664th Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron reunion, with a full slate of activities in store this weekend.
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ABOVE: 664th Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron reunion committee secretary Catherine Eastman sets up identification badges this morning for the veterans who will attend the annual reunion at the former base, now the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center. HOME PAGE SLIDESHOW PHOTO: Members of the 664th Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron reunion committee set up signage this morning to welcome the 157 registered veterans and their guests to this weekend’s festivities at the Ohio Hi-Point Career Center, 2880 State Route 540, the site of the former base. The replicated gray guard shack pictured at the right was created by OHPCC students for the reunion. (EXAMINER PHOTOS | MANDY LOEHR) |
Festivities begin tonight with registration at 3 p.m. in the school cafeteria, the 664th Café. A catered buffet dinner follows at 5:30 p.m., along with a special meeting at 7 p.m., featuring Col. Rick T. Johns, an active duty full colonel from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
He currently commands the 88th Communications Group, leading 500 cyber operations Airmen maintaining the Air Force’s largest communications network. He provides computer, telephone and radio services for one of the Air Force’s largest and most diverse bases.
OHPCC building and grounds superintendent Robert Walker chairs the 16th reunion, not only as a school official, but as a former civilian employee of the base. Mr. Walker began working on the base as a teenager and was offered a position to stay on campus after the base closed and became the joint vocational school in 1970.
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Mr. Walker noted this reunion is expected to be the largest to date with some 250 of more than 400 radar bases worldwide to be represented this weekend after organizers opened the event to include all radar base veterans. With so many of the 664th veterans getting on in years and ongoing efforts to open the National Air Defense Radar Museum, organizers wanted to open the organization and opportunities to all radar veterans to preserve the legacy of this and all bases charged with watching the skies to thwart airborne enemy threats during the Cold War era.
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