PROBABLY NOT...

If you haven’t a room in Oshkosh, most likely you’re not going to attend the 2004 AirVenture, since those of us who are going have had room applications since AirVenture 2003.  There is no question that the Oshkosh event is, by far, the largest and most professionally run.   

We will be updating our website daily with pictures from Oshkosh and the happenings of the day.  If you aren’t going to the event, keep a daily check of www.fly-low.com for the news.  It should be interesting this year.  Burt Rutan, the new space agency head, will be there with info on their most recent space adventure.  It is possible that SpaceShipOne may have won the millions of dollars from X-Prize by that time.  They are certainly close. 

LOST ANOTHER FRIEND, TODAY 

Three years ago, in 2001, I approached the Log Cabin Democrat (Conway, AR) to print a start-up aviation publication called FLY-LOW.  The person I dealt with was Deanna Hearn.  For the past three years, I have worked with Deanna, through the good times and the bad.  She constantly made every effort to please and see that the product was good.  It never seemed to bother her when she had to correct our mistakes in the publication before sending it on to the press room.  She would drive to my office, an hour away from her office, to make computer corrections, never complaining, so that our computers would understand each other.  It was all in her job.   

On those nights we printed, she would always wait until the press was running and the product was good before she left to go home to her other family.  That was her job.  A job she took most seriously.  She taught me a lot about what needed to be done to get a good product.  We had our trials and errors.  Deanna always went the extra mile.   

On Saturday, May 22, 2004, at 8:15 am Deanna and Larry, her husband, was riding a motorcycle in Greenbrier (AR).  The motorcycle collided with a car.  I lost a friend that day.  Larry survived the accident.  Deanna died of massive head injuries. 

We printed the June issue of FLY-LOW just two days after the accident.  It was a hard issue to print; I kept expecting her to bounce around the corner with that effervescent smile.  It was not to happen.   

Deanna will be missed…