From President Doug Fee

It happened this month.  The Auburn Aviation Association lost two of our long-time, mainstay members and supporters.  Jerry Poole passed away after several years of declining health.  Jerry has been involved with the AAA for many years and, in a wider sense, has been a strong supporter of our local aviation community too.  He spent the majority of his adult years in the field of aircraft sales and brokering.  From all accounts, Jerry was a guy who gave the term "aircraft salesman" a good name.  He seemed to be more concerned with helping his clients find the right airplane than he was to just make a quick sale.  He had great stories about buying small fleets of military surplus Beech 18s and DC-3s, ferrying them to California, and then modifying them to civilian configurations for resale.  

Jerry was also a good guy.  He was relaxed and calm, and always seemed to have a smile on his face, as well as a kind word.  He was a gentleman we will miss.    

Duane Rueb also took his final flight west this month.  Duane was born in South Dakota, but grew up mostly in the Sacramento area.  He learned to fly many years ago in a Piper Tri-Pacer in Independence, Oregon.  A man of many talents and interests, he was always quietly there in the background helping out with the Association's business and activities.  As Wayne Mooneyham very aptly put it, Duane has been a permanent fixture in our organization for many years.  That was his beautiful Kitfox that attracted so much attention as it rode on the back of a truck in the Fourth of July parade through downtown Auburn a few years ago.  April 20th saw a standing room only crowd in the Barnstormer Room as we gathered to mark Duane's passing, and to express our appreciation of him.   

I suppose that it is the nature of things that, as time marches on, we lose some of our friends and collaborators in life.  But we don't have to like it.  In this case, I think we can at least be partially mollified in our loss by considering some of the gains that we have received by way of the influx of some of our young new members.  Our new members may never entirely take the place of stalwarts of our organization like Jerry and Duane, but we can still appreciate their new contributions to the Auburn Aviation Association.  

Blue skies,

Doug