District VII-2011/07

July 2011 138
THIS IS THE type of District VII
information I like to write about! It’s a true
success story—maybe even a Cinderella
story.
It started last summer with a group of
guys from the North Mankato Electric
Flyers Club who were flying at a local
school soccer field. Of course, when the
soccer players show up all flying ceases for
the day.
One Saturday, one of the coaches
stopped and spoke with some of the fliers,
stating he had flown models when he was a
youngster. He was invited to try flying again
by one of the members.
As luck would have it, that coach was a
friend of a city official and mentioned the
Electric Flyers, and the city official had also
flown model aircraft as a youngster.
The seed was planted and in the fall,
after a few meetings with the club, a place
was selected for an electric-powered model
flying site that would be built by the city
using city employees and money to
complete the project.
The site was graded then blacktopped
and electric power was installed for batterycharging
stations. There is much more to
this story that may show up elsewhere in
MA, but I’ll share a few of the pictures in
this column.
Many thanks to Mike F. Stott Sr. for
supplying the photos and story for this
column and to the following people who
made this all happen:
• Mayor Gary Zellmer and the North
Mankato City Council
• Wendell Sande, North Mankato City
administrator
• Gary Endersbe, Bob Kurkowski, Carl
Larson, Steve Eccles, Steve Mills, Mike
Stott, and Brad Swanson
• Tom Neubert, city electrician
Take a youngster out to the flying site and
teach him to fly.
District VII
Bill Oberdieck, District VII Vice President; [email protected]
Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Bill Oberdieck
Vice President
Box 1076
Southgate MI 48195
Tel.: (734) 283-4813
Fax: (734) 283-0650
www.amadistrictvii.org
Associate Vice
Presidents
Lee D. Frederickson,
Ada MI; [email protected]
Bud Gorman, Knife River MN;
[email protected]
Don Held, Elmira MI;
(231) 584-2662; [email protected]
Ed Kincer, Fenton MI; (810) 610-
7791; [email protected]
Tom Pierce, St. Clair MI; (810)
367-6450; tom_pierce_48079@
yahoo.com
Mark E. Robotti, Lindstrom MN;
MGrobotti@cs.
Tom Ryan, Greenfield WI;
(414) 881-0070; tomcat@
execpc.com
Lloyd Swanson; Cedar Rapids IA;
(319) 373-0947; [email protected]
Kent Woods, Ames IA ; (515)
232-8180; [email protected]
Frequency Coordinators
West: Al Schwartz, Roseville
MN; (651) 633-2286
East: Pete Waters, Northville MI;
(248) 486-4800
Contest Coordinators:
Wayne Yeager, RC (Michigan
only), (517) 260-0132; yogi1931@
comcast.net
Michael Haller, RC (except
Michigan), (920) 979-9452;
[email protected]
Flying Site Coordinator
Tony Stillman, Tony
[email protected]
Webmaster
Ed Kincer, [email protected]
District VII Volunteers
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