District VIII—Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
Mark Johnston — Vice President
- Email: [email protected]
- Address: 6608 Beck Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
- Tel.: (505) 823-0158
- Website: www.amadistrict-viii.org
Report
The month of April was busy for me. The AMA Executive Council (EC) meeting was held in Toledo, Ohio, at the Toledo R/C Expo. As part of my duties on the EC, I serve on the AMA Scholarship Committee. During the Toledo show, Eric Gilkey was awarded a $7,000 scholarship. It is an honor to be part of this AMA endeavor.
I attended the Richardson RC Club’s fly-in on April 12 in McKinney, Texas. The wind blew and not many people came out, but the club did well and we had plenty of fun and flying anyway. I flew nearly everything I took—even a 1-ounce indoor airplane backward in the wind. I always say the wind is just more lift—except when it’s stronger than the forward thrust. I may have pushed that a bit while we were there.
Tony Breyen, the District VIII associate vice president (AVP) for the Dallas area, came as well and flew once or twice. He was very happy that he won the raffle airplane. Tony also helped me present Making a Difference (MAD) awards to Ed Kranz, Robert Ferguson, and Harold Walsh. They did a great job with the event. The club also had a nice solar charging station set up.
On April 19 I went to the Alvin RC Club’s Big Bird event in Houston. I had Randy Brown and AVP Randy Ritch go as well. It was a great showing; more than 50 pilots attended. Contest Director (CD) Benny Beherns did a great job, and club members helped with the food, the flightline, and anything else that needed to be done. It’s always nice to see an entire club come out to help at an event and work instead of fly — that makes the CD’s job much easier.
I met many people and had a great time, although I did not get to fly an RC airplane. One of the highlights of the event was a 50% Cub owned by Robert Bernal. The airplane was flown from takeoff to landing by eight-year-old Desmond Campbell. He did a great job with an airplane Desmond had only flown once before. Desmond said he was nervous because he had never flown in a contest before, but Robert coached him during the entire flight. Desmond did an outstanding job.
On May 3 I took a quick trip down to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for a scale meet. Steve Preston did a nice job and had plenty of help from members of the Mesilla Valley Model Airplane Club.
Hope to see you all at the field!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
