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Sports: Mustang bid for state title ends
2017 1867
The Weekender Saturday, May 27, 2017
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REMEMBERING THOSE WHO SERVED By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
Shawn Minihan
IHS grad to speak Monday By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Shawn Minihan, a Johnson County attorney and Navy veteran, will speak at Memorial Day services Monday. Ceremonies will start at 11 a.m. at Highland Cemetery, north end of Jefferson Avenue. Minihan told the Register an emphasis of his presentation will be the death of a See VET | Page A8
MORAN — Early Friday morning five volunteers met at the little cemetery outside Moran. When they left, 83 flags fluttered in the late-spring breeze, where before there were none. The project — to color the rural graveyard’s center aisle in red, white and blue for Memorial Day — was a joint effort between Moran’s American Legion, the Sons of the American Legion, and the Marmaton Masonic Lodge. Among this clutch of patriotic mensches was Willis Ross. Ross, 96 years old but as limber as a willow switch, moved from spot to spot, bending at the waist to clear debris from the openings of the PVC tubes that were installed as flag holders, each one buried a vertical 17 inches in the soil. Having cleared the holder, Ross would plant the slender flagpole — its banner wound tightly around its upper half — into the ground and twist the rod in his fingers until the wind itself took hold of the unfurling flag. Ross served in the Army Air Forces during the Second World War — in England, in France. “I actually made it all the way to Mannheim, Germany, crossing over the Rhine Riv-
Willis Ross, 96, was among the volunteers who helped erect a row of flags surrounding the Moran Cemetery Friday morning. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
er.” The LaHarpe native worked a variety of jobs during those jagged years. He was a teletype operator in England. He attached wing tanks to the refueling planes that streamed into the tiny airstrips outside London. Later, he crossed See MORAN | Page A8
Navy vets recall their roles in race to space By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
to discuss their extensive, colorful careers.
Bill Goode and Al Richardson have more in common than they ever realized. Both served in the Navy during World War II, Goode in the Aleutian Islands in the South Pacific; Richardson stateside, as part of a rocketry testing program in Maryland. Both remain skilled musicians: Richardson made a name for himself on the steel guitar in the 1930s; Goode continues to play the organ regularly for his fellow residents at Heartland Meadows in Iola. But it wasn’t until the two became neighbors last summer — they live just down the hall from each other — that Goode and Richardson learned of the other’s extensive career as engineers, particularly within the early years of the U.S. space exploration programs. “Isn’t that amazing,” gushed Leslie Weir, administrator of Heartland Meadows. “I never figured I’d meet an actual rocket scientist, and here we have two of them.” Goode and Richardson sat down with a Register reporter recently
GOODE, 92, grew up in Texas, joined the Navy during World War II, and spent much of the war aboard a miniaturized version of an aircraft carrier, a jump carrier. There were two primary concerns while on board — evading Japanese torpedoes, and ocean waves. “The waves would wash the planes off the deck if we weren’t careful,” he explained. “We had to tie them down. We still lost a bunch of planes.” After the war ended, Goode enrolled in college to be an engineer. He was hired shortly thereafter by Boeing and helped with developing such aircraft as the B-52 Stratofortress. In the meantime, the United States and Russia were embarking on a space race. Boeing was hired as a subcontractor under NASA to help develop components for various rocket designs. Goode was brought on board as the Apollo space missions were under development. He moved from Wichita to southern Louisiana to the famed Michoud
Quote of the day Vol. 119, No. 149
Bill Goode, left, and Al Richardson, who donned his Navy hat for the interview. Assembly Plant in New Orleans, as part of the rocket booster design team. The rockets would be assembled, tested, and if successful, loaded on barges for the long trek to Cape Canaveral, Fla. “I liked everything
about it,” Goode explained. “We did static firing of every rocket, and everything was kept in top shape.” Perhaps most pleasing, Goode said, was that the Apollo missions went off almost on schedule. President
Kennedy had declared the U.S. would reach the moon by the end of the 60s. Neil Armstrong did just that in July 1969. Amid the triumphs was the tragedy. Goode was in the control room when a testing accident prior to Apollo 1 sparked
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.” — Mark Twain 75 Cents
a fire, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in February 1967. The accident threatened to derail the entire Apollo program before the program resumed 20 See SPACE | Page A3
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