From Spruce Goose to Space: The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

Arnold00:00:02

As one of the ten best aviation museums in the United States and With more than 20 years of experience, this museum continues to inspire and educate all generations to promote and preserve aerospace history and to honor the patriotic service of those who have served our nation, both civilian and military. It is also home to one of the most iconic aircraft in all of aviation history. We're going to find out more on on St. Louis in Tune.Welcome to St. Louis in Tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston who is on assignment today. Folks, we're glad that you've joined us today.We want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage for their support of the show.You can listen to previous shows@stlintune.com please help us continue to grow by leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcast or your preferred podcast platform. We're going to get into a thought to ponder today, and this is a good one.All these thoughts to ponder are good, and it's designed to help you think along your your day or along your week, or maybe your year, if you're so inclined that way. On the path of life, few signs are big or clear. Just don't get fooled by the ones that say you can't get there from here.Again, on the path of life, few signs are big or clear. Just don't get fooled by the ones that say you can't get there from here.Our guest has never been fooled about anything related to aerospace and he is in aviation. He is the Chief Operating Officer for the Evergreen Aviation and space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Terry Howell, welcome to St. Louis in Tune.

Terry00:02:10

Thank you very much for having me.

Arnold00:02:11

Terry, how did you get involved with the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum? I know you have a background. You've been in the Coast Guard. You've done a lot of teaching, you've done a lot of marketing kinds of things.How'd you get involved with them?

Terry00:02:29

Like many things in my life, it's just things line up in front of you and you take advantage of opportunities. After I'd retired from the military, from the Coast Guard, I worked for 15 years for Military.com working my way up from writer to editor in chief.And when that kind of decided, when I decided to step away from that, I in the nonprofit world and started working with a group called Veterans Legacies.And it just so happened that one of the key contributors and founders of the Veterans Legacies was associated with the museum through a purchase of the property. And they had asked if I could come in and help with some of the digital marketing.And we got in there and figured out there was a whole lot more to be done than that. And like with military.com either through attrition or good luck, I moved my way up to this position of coo.So hopefully that was quick enough to stick within my view of brevity.

Arnold00:03:21

Yeah, no, that's fine.

Terry00:03:22

No.

Arnold00:03:23

What? Now, describe the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum to us a little bit. And folks, just a little disclaimer here. My wife and I were up in Oregon.We were going on a wine tour. We were driving by this place, and all of a sudden these huge hangars appeared. And it's like, what in the world is that out in the middle of a field?And we were going to McMinnville and I was like, I need to look that up, what that was. And I found out what it was, and we went back the next day and took the tour. And we spent like, gosh, six or seven hours there, for crying out loud.But Terry, tell us a little bit about the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

Terry00:04:00

As you alluded to at the beginning, we're focused on preserving history and opening opportunities in education and enlightening people. And not just history of aviation and aerospace, but the direction that they may want to participate.The museum itself is two very large buildings, about 165,000 square foot each. The first one was dedicated to housing the Spruce Goose. And that portion of the museum opened in 2001.Prior to that, the founder had been collecting warbirds and keeping them in a smaller museum just across the highway. And then as time went on, they.They just acquired more and more aircraft and decided to build the second building, which at that time was dedicated to space travel and the history of space. And so we ended up partnering with the Cosmosphere out of Kansas, and they built the.They built up a very nice display around the fact that someday we were going to hope to get the space shuttle. That didn't happen. But the museum, it's.Now that part of the portion of the museum houses an amazing collection of vintage helicopters and post Vietnam War era fighters and stealth technology in addition to the race to Space. So that's a real quick overview.

Arnold00:05:17

Yeah, the Cosmosphere is another great place in Hutchinson, Kansas, folks. If you've never been there, that's a little closer to St. Louis.But hey, if you're on the west coast or even if you're in the Midwest or the east coast, you need to get to McMinnville and see the Spruce goose. That's the. Is that the big draw for the museum.

Terry00:05:34

The Spruce Goose?

Arnold00:05:35

Yes. Yes.

Terry00:05:36

There's a. Obviously a long and storied history around Howard Hughes and the. The building of the Spruce goose.And then of course, the being called before Congress to explain why it cost so much and hadn't flown yet, leading to the one and only flight to prove the proof of concept. And then he buried the. Buried it back in his hangar in Southern California. The Spruce goose was essentially bounced around between owners.At one point, Disney had the property that housed the Spruce goose and along with the goose and were scaling back in that operation.So they eventually gave it to an aero club in Southern California, which they started the discussion whether they should part it out and send the bigger pieces to like the Smithsonian and so on.And that's when the founder of the museum, Michael King Smith, started putting together a bid for it to move to Oregon, which again, seems really absurd to most folks. But the fact is it's with that kind of story and how they got it here, it's a very interesting and amazing feat.

Arnold00:06:37

It is a feat because it was a feat to get it from Long beach up there to McMinnville, that whole process. Isn't there a video on that or like a story? I know at the museum, but I think online there's some information about that too. Correct?

Terry00:06:51

Yes. There's a really good documentary done by Peter Devil about the rescuing of the Spruce goose and its shipment to McMindle.And it really gets into the finer details and it's really well produced. It's one of my favorite versions of the story, or not necessarily version of the story, but storytelling around that.

Arnold00:07:10

Now, folks, you can see in a picture the Spruce goose and how big it is. But until you see it in person, it's you. You won't believe that. What were your initial thoughts when you saw that thing for the first time?

Terry00:07:23

I think it's like everybody, the first thing they do is they look around and say, where is it? Because it is so big. It's like a backdrop to everything else. And essentially it's from one perspective or another.It's like a big gray wall in front of you. The 165 foot museum that it's in is pretty much wingtip to wingtip.There's just a little bit of space at each end of the building that isn't filled by the wings of that amazing plane.

Arnold00:07:48

To let you know, folks, that wingspan is 300. Just shy 1 inch shy of 320ft.

Terry00:07:55

Feet.

Arnold00:07:55

So wider. The wingspan's wider than are longer than a football field. So just get that a little bit in perspective. That's what he's talking about there.And the length is 218ft and 8 inches long. It's 79ft 4 inches. I've got this in front of me. 300,000 pounds. So when it first showed up, you guys didn't. It wasn't all obviously in one piece.You had to put it together. But there was a whole process of restoring it. And explain a little bit about what went into that restoration process.

Terry00:08:27

In reality, it predates my experience with the museum. But there's quite a few of the gentlemen who worked on it still working as volunteers at the museum.And they were assembled by Michael King, Smith's father, his name was Del Smith. He put together a team and they went down to Southern California and carefully dismantled the plane.And of course, part of it was shipped up in barges. Part of it was shipped up on a truck. And they brought it up and took it across the highway from where the museum now is.And over, I think it was a three, four year period they rebuilt it. And except for some of the major, like the tail and so on, which they assembled once they got it inside the museum.But it was a lot of painstaking work. And it's amazing to see how well they did to bring it back to its original luster, so to speak.

Arnold00:09:10

So you have. One of the buildings is completely aviation. And I don't want to ignore the space portion. We'll talk about that.Do you have a favorite plane in the aviation area other than the Spruce Goose?

Terry00:09:24

I grew up in the 60s and so one of my favorite planes, especially just to draw as a kid, was the Saber Jet. So I'd say that RF86 is one of my favorites. We have. We have a couple of. They are quite replicas. They are built from original parts. But we have a.The first jet that was flown by the Germans toward the end of World War II. And that's the Messerschmitt. And then we have the first era of jets built by Britain. The second version of that was.The first one was called the Vampire. The second is the Venom. And the Venom is also made of wood with obviously with some metal.But it's a very interesting little twin tail kind of a plane that. So those are my three favorites on the aviation side or what we now call the West Pavilion.

Arnold00:10:08

And you've got. I really appreciate how you've done this. You've got early. An early flight section and you go historically the golden age.You also have a Spirit of St. Luke replica there. Go into some of the war birds from World War II in Korea and Vietnam. And then you do also do some amphibious kinds of planes.And getting into the space area, man, I tell you what, my favorite's probably SR71. But what's your favorite in the space area?

Terry00:10:35

First of all, you nailed it with the SR71, that it's probably the most popular aircraft we have next to the Spruce Goose.And every year we actually have a gathering every other year of pilots and crewmen and engineers who worked on that aircraft that come out and do a big seminar over Father's Day weekend. And it's a huge draw. And the way we have it displayed is different than many other places.It's in the raw would be the wrong way to put it, but it's not surrounded by any kind of observer by itself.And then all of the special equipment, the sensors and the cameras and all those sort of things are all set up in a separate display so people can see how it not only helped the plane itself, but how it did its job of kind of snooping on the our enemies at the time during the Cold War. Personally, my favorite plane is the Warthog A10. That was the aircraft my father was a crew chief on.So I have some affinity to that plane, but probably even more so, if I have to be honest, is the collection of helicopters I stated earlier. I was in the Coast Guard and it's one of the very first Coast Guard helicopters, along with some Piaseckis which are dual rotor first generation.One of them in fact has the cloth skin and we have an H3 that is hung from the ceiling over the. The space section of the. Of that museum depicting the rescue of the frogmen and so on from. And the astronauts.So a lot of interesting things going on in there, but I probably have to lean towards my helicopter days.And in addition, we have a Global Hawk hanging from the ceiling and an amazing collection of drones including or about to launch a display of adversary drones, current drones that are being used by Iran, Russia and a handful of others that are. They're prototypes, but they're built by the same company that builds the. The copies for the US Military to train on or train against, I should say.

Arnold00:12:23

Wow.

Terry00:12:23

So we have got quite a few drones on display there, including one of the fastest helicopters ever made, which is again a drone. But It's a pretty amazing plane.

Arnold00:12:33

So the space artifacts, the space things that you have, you have. Is it a Gemini capsule or a Apollo or Mercury capsule?

Terry00:12:45

Gemini, I believe. We also have the. We have replicas of Sputnik through the Lunar Lander and the Rover.We also have a Titan and missiles that are actually in their stand upright. The Titan, if you go in, you can go all the way down to the base of that.And there's a launch facility replica which is actually filled with the original launch facility control room equipment. And it's pretty amazing.Again, a lot of that stuff is on loan from the Air Force, but much of it is on loan from the Cosmosphere, which are great partners of ours.

Arnold00:13:23

What are the. What's down the road?Do you have some things I read, something about another stealth fighter possibly coming in or what's down the road that you can reveal to listeners that they might see in future visits?

Terry00:13:36

One of the things, and I kind of divert around to get to the answer, and I apologize, but we have a restoration department that people can actually walk through and take tours while the guys are actually working on it. One of our biggest projects right now is a C47 that was D Day Hero.It actually flew three missions, I believe it is during D Day, and then followed up with Marketplace Wow. And our market garden and some other activity. So it's. And then, of course, it was a.An airline plane for quite a while, and then it was on display outdoors for years. And so we're in the process of essentially, from the rivets up, bringing that plane back to its original glory.And so the reason I say that is because once that aircraft is finished, we'll start working on rent, restoring, or if not rebuilding our F117. We have an F117. Its name is the Lone Wolf, which. What's interesting about the F117 Nighthawks is that each of the first crew members got the name.Crew chiefs got the name. They're playing. So there's a Toxic Avenger and other names, but ours is the Lone Wolf.And what's special about the Lone Wolf is it was the first one to deliver ordinance during Desert Storm.And it, when we received it, it was demilitarized, which is a fancy term that means they took anything off that was top secret or could be used to shoot or whatever it was. RA10 has the gun barrel, but it doesn't have the gun, that kind of thing. And so they demilitarized it, which means they stripped all the.What they call ram, which is A radar absorbing material. They took all the leading edges off the wings and the nose portions of what they call the tail feathers were removed.So much of the aircraft that gives it its sleekness has been removed. And I think the term that some people use to describe how it looks is kind of like a stink bug right now.But so we're working with the local university, Oregon State University, to reconstruct the leading edges of those wings through both melding of two worlds.We're going to be using aluminum, but because those leading edge wings were actually originally ceramic and they were all like a knife's edge, the university is printing out the sections of it with a 3D printer and then which will be. Which will be melded or not melted, but essentially adhered to aluminum and then attached to the leading edges.So we can rebuild that look and get it. Bring it back to its. Bring it out of the stink bug, so to speak, and back into its original glory.So that plane is our big next project in that we received that about a year and a half ago to a lot of fanfare. The general who flew it during that mission, he also delivered the first ordinance in Panama.He has come out and done several seminars and speak, met with people to talk about that aircraft. So that one's exciting and fun. We've got a couple other planes in the works we're hoping to get. One is A.An F15, which we already have a couple, but this one in particular is in. They're decommissioning it, like right now from an Air Guard base that is painted in World War II camo with the Allied Normandy stripes on it.And it's dedicated to. It's got an image of on the tail of the gentleman. The airfield is named after Kingsley.He was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient from World War II. And so we're hoping to pull off a deal to get that one on display because it's just. It's such an original and awesome paint job that.And really important to Oregon as far as the connection to Kingsley, who is from Portland, and our local National Air Guard.

Arnold00:16:52

So how far from Portland are you located? Just for give people a perspective.

Terry00:16:57

Crows fly it's about 30 miles to 40 miles, something like that. But we're in the kind of the heart of wine country, which means the. A bit of a circuitous route to get there. So we're about 45 minutes from Portland.And like I said, we're. In fact, you mentioned the field that. That we're in that's in front of the Museum is now all under vine. Oh, wow.So it's rather aesthetically pleasing. They're putting in a brand new hotel which will be finished in 27. That's not us, the landlord, but it's on the property.They also own and operate a water park called Wings and Waves, which has a 747 on the top of it. And people can go up, climb up inside the 747 and ride a slide. Water slide back out of it. So a lot of interesting things on the campus.And we've got a lot of things planned for the future to adhere. Tie it to the wine industry and also make it a destiny. More of a destination.

Arnold00:17:44

Yeah, absolutely. This is Arnold Strucker with Mark Langston of St. Louis and Tomb. We're talking to Terry Howell.He's the chief operating officer for the Evergreen Aviation and space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. You guys have a. One thing I remember I didn't get in it. The flight simulator there. And explain a little bit about that.I remember I got in one down at the Cosmosphere and almost got sick. I don't know. What if yours is one of those spinning around ones or.

Terry00:18:12

Yes, this one's a 360°. The only thing it doesn't do is move back and forth. But it does spin and rotates backwards and so on. And I've only done it once. We.You have the opportunity. In fact, we have two of them now. You have the opportunity to ride it as a simulated roller coaster, which is very cool.But someone with my lack of intestinal fortitude. I don't like not having some sort of control what's going on.

Arnold00:18:36

Yeah.

Terry00:18:36

And so that one I would not for. I did decide I was going to do the F18 one day and that was awesome.Except I was bent on trying to do as many barrels as I possibly could until I realized that there's only so many you can do before again, that intestinal fortitude comes to bear. And I end up trying to run the clock out in the flight level, straight level for the last minute and a half of the ride. But it's very, very popular.Kids love it. The adults love it. We have everything from the ability to fly the Spruce goose, which doesn't do a lot of aerobatic moves.But you can fly the Spruce goose or all the World War II birds. You can fly the SR71, which again is almost as boring as the flying the goose when it comes down to what you can do.Because essentially that was just. You fly really fast and you turn right, and since you don't, it doesn't move forward. You don't necessarily get that full inertia of the.Of how fast the SR71 actually goes. But like I said, the rest of the rides on that are very popular.

Arnold00:19:35

So what do you think is the most unusual aircraft or space artifact that you have?

Terry00:19:43

I think I referred to the Venom earlier. To me, that's pretty unusual. There's some interesting things about that aircraft.The fact that it was one of few aircraft that had what they call a shotgun start, where you put a canister that looks like a big shotgun shell behind the pilot and essentially fire it off. And that's how you started the engine.

Arnold00:20:00

Wow.

Terry00:20:01

And the fact that it's a wooden jet and like the first generation of jets, fighter jets after World War II, they referred to the swallow, which is the Messerschmitt 6 2, which was, again, a very interesting aircraft. I said, it's hard to say if this. Think that as far as rarity goes, we have everything from the Wright Flyer replica through to the Stealth Fighter.We have a collection of Lockheed Skunk Works planes. So we have the. What is in our version is a T33, which was originally the F88, which was Skunk Works first plane.We have the 104 Stark fighter, the Stealth fighter, the D21 drone, and the SR71. So we have a kind of a mini collection within our collection of Skunk work planes. So we do a Skunk Works tour.They go into a small theater, learn about where Skunk Works comes from, and then get to go out and see and touch the aircraft that are featured in that.

Arnold00:20:54

Because you have a theater there, it's an imax.

Terry00:20:57

It hasn't been an IMAX for years. It's a licensing thing. But it is a giant screen 3D theater that seats 225 people, but the screen is 75ft across. And so it's.It's definitely an experience. We have a smaller theater in the.In what we call now the East Pavilion, the Space Museum, where we feature things like if NASA's doing something interesting, we'll feature a place where people go and sit and watch whatever NASA's featuring on their site. Or, like I said, some training and tours start from there.

Arnold00:21:27

But something that I was kind of. There is a lot to do, because I wasn't. I was kind of surprised. You have. It's an event space too. You have birthdays there.Do you have wedding receptions there and things like that?

Terry00:21:41

Yes. So the. The original founder of the Museum.Del Smith and Michael Smith, they had visions of it being at one point, I think they called it the Aeroventure Park. They had. They actually for a while had armored vehicles you could drive around on a hill and so on. So some of those things have gone to the wayside.But what was left was that we have the theater building which is located right in between the two massive museum buildings. It has a couple of biplane hanging from the ceiling inside the lobby. But the right hand side is all dedicated to the movie theater and projection.And the left hand side is conference centers and event spaces. We have a log cabin, they call it the Lodge, which is slash a chapel. They have a lot of weddings there.And they have an event center next to that for hosting receptions and so on. We put on in the museum itself. We have a couple of big events each year.A wine McMinnville wine and food Classic in March that features all the local wineries and so on. And that we. Over the years it used to be dedicated to just that east Pavilion.But this year we're going to try integrating it throughout the entire museum. So that'll be fun and interesting. But like I said, like you said, it's definitely a lot of event focused things.Everything from weddings to graduations and proms and bar mitzvahs, you name it, they come here to do it.

Arnold00:22:56

Become a pretty prominent place in the community. Then.

Terry00:23:02

Yes, I would say McMinnville is. Because the wine industry and everything has really grown. It's its own Persona.But back in 98, when this museum was dreamt of, in 2001 when it was opened the first time, the first building, it's always been the center of attraction for the city of McMinnville. You go to local sandwich shops and they got the Spruce Goose painted on the wall.We have a local chain of bar hotel places called the McMenamins and they have a painting of the Spruce Goose and some rather odd situations. But in the paintings are always the things that the Spruce Goose never did, like flying over a mountain lake.But it is interesting how it is entrenched in the local community.

Arnold00:23:41

I want to take a brief break and Terry, when we come back, I'd like for you to speak to many of the educational opportunities that you provide for not only school students, but the community and people who come in. I think I was looking at some of those educational things and I want you to highlight what you think are some of the most valuable things.But we're going to take a quick break here, folks. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston who's on assignment. You're listening to St. Louis in tune. Don't go away. As strange as as it may sound.

Better Rate Mortgage00:24:17

At Better Rate Mortgage we love talking to people about mortgages. Everyone in St. Louis promises a better mortgage rate. But what you really need to turn that perfect house into your dream home is a better mortgage.At Better Rate Mortgage, we open the door to so much more. So where are you in the home buying process? Researching, maybe wondering how much you can afford? House hunting?Get a pre approval from Better Rate Mortgage Ready to Buy. Our team is ready to make your mortgage process fast and easy.Whether you're purchasing your first home or taking cash out to make your dream home even dreamier. Our door is open. Come on in and get started. Today we'll show you how.Call Sean directly at 314-375-3293 or online@betterratemortgage.com Remember, at Better Rate Mortgage, a better rate is just the beginning. Betterratemortgage.com and MLS ID 401335 and equal housing lender.

Dred Scott Heritage Foundation00:25:03

This is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision was a major legal event and catalysts that contributed to the Civil War.The decision declared that Dred Scott could not be free because he was not a citizen.The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision on July 9, 1868.The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with the likeness of the man Dred Scott. But we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and share the one page petition with others. To find the petition, please go to dredscottlives.org and click on the Dred Scott Petition drive on the right side of the page.On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in Tunes.

Arnold00:26:12

Welcome back to St. Louis in Tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. Mark is on assignment and he's missing some great stuff.We're talking with Terry Howell from the in McMinnville, Oregon from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.He's the Chief Operating Officer and Terry, I had before the break had talked about one of the things that I thought was really great that you guys do are all the education programs that you have going on and all year round, it's just not for classroom kids, for field trips and things like that. You do have some camps. Talk a little bit about some of those things because I think people, I want them to get a feel for that.Museums, sometimes they just have things there and you just go in and maybe they have the onesie twosie field trips. But you guys really have quite a few things going on.

Terry00:27:00

Yeah, we do. In fact, education is the foundation of the museum, going all the way back to the founding.We offer through the education department several different versions of a summer camp or spring camp. We just finished one last week. It's a day camp.So I don't know how it is in Missouri, but in Oregon, once a quarter or once a month the teachers have an in service day. So school is out and parents are looking for ways to keep their kids occupied as well as, as hopefully educated.So we've been featuring this for about a year now and the other day we had quite a large group of kids from several age groups out and we partnered with a local aviation school and they flew over one of their smaller helicopters, landed it in the parking lot at the museum and let the kids kind of climb all over it and talk to the pilot and learn about how the helicopters work and so on. And that's the kind of thing that happens on a regular basis. We have spring break camp.So during spring break we offer again a day camp that's similar to our summer camps.And then throughout the summer we have camps and they're dedicated to everything from different topics from aviation specific to space travel or space engineering, coding, several things. And again it ranges from k through usually 10th grade.We don't get a lot of older kids, but we did have a program where we partner with the local schools around robotics.They come into our facility to we have a couple classrooms that they use for actually building their robots and then they have robotic competitions and so on. So we're really involved at the local school districts and a lot of homeschool groups.We do, as you mentioned, a ton of field trips and those can range from self guided to having a curriculum assigned to it and giving the kids everything from a scavenger hunt research do while they're in the museum. So again, it's a major focus of our, of the museum and how we contribute to the community in that way.As far as adult Education and getting closer to the 12th grade and above. We have intern programs. We work with Horizon Airlines. They have a local charter school that's focused on aviation.And so those young men and women come in and they get to work on everything from how to learn how to put fabric on an aircraft skin to doing rivets and tearing down and restoring engines and so on. And again, part of that is our tour program, too. We allow.We have one tour that we give in the restoration area where people get to do their own riveting and take home a piece of aircraft skin with a rivet in it that they've done themselves. So that's probably a little more Trotsky than education, but it's fun.And again, like I said, whenever there's a major event going on with NASA, we'll open up either the large theater or the smaller one in our east pavilion to people that come in and watch and learn. We do several seminars.One of my favorites is, is the niece, great niece, maybe great, great niece of Betsy Coleman comes out and does an in person, in Persona kind of presentation about Betsy Coleman and what she was, what she did. And for those who don't know, Betsy Coleman was African American woman who was the first African American female pilot licensed.She actually had to go to France to get her license. And then she came back to the United States and started a flight school. And she was a barnstormer and really popular in that era.She died, unfortunately, in an aviation incident. But we have an aircraft like she flew on display that has her story attached to it.But for several years, we've had her niece come out and do a presentation in education. We get local schools to come out.In fact, there's a school in Salem, which is about an hour south of us, that is called the Bessie Coleman Elementary School. So those kids come up every year for that.

Arnold00:30:44

That's really cool.

Terry00:30:45

So that's some of the things we do. It's not all of it, but that's the bulk of it.

Arnold00:30:50

Did you ever imagine when you were working on helicopters in the Coast Guard, that this is one of the things you would be doing?

Terry00:30:58

Quite frankly, never.At one point I thought I might get my A and P and work on aircraft, but I figured out pretty quickly that, and this is, I don't want to discourage people from working on aircraft, but there's a lot of risk involved in working on commercial aircraft, and you don't get paid much more than a Toyota mechanic. So I decided to go a different direction. So before I got out of the military. I got my bachelor's degree and then shortly after my master's.And that kind of set me up for what I did@military.com and eventually here at the museum. The nice thing is in military.com everything was virtual. It was online content. And the nice thing is here everything's hands on.The whole idea of we try to integrate digital as much as we can or can afford to, but for the most part, this is getting your hands into it and learning about what's going. What happened and how things were developed and so on. So it's a much more tactile. Tactile, I should say.

Arnold00:31:47

Yeah. One of the great things I think is you involve a lot of veterans and I really encourage them to come back listening to you.At the front end of the program. You have some of these individuals who were involved with a lot of these aircraft come back for some days when they're highlighted.I think it's great that you have these veterans come back like that.

Terry00:32:06

That. And we have a lot of veterans who actually are part of our volunteer corps. So we have three to four different opportunities around volunteering here.One of them is as a docent which give guided tours and talk about the aircraft and the history and the people that are involved in the aircraft. But we also have collections team, a restoration team, and both the restoration and the collections team are all operated by volunteers.We don't have any paid staff in those areas right now. We really rely heavily on their experience and their love for what they do to help the museum be successful.It's interesting because again, we even have.Whenever we need to do anything with the F117, there's a gentleman in southern Oregon that drives all the way up to come up and clean it up and make sure that all the stuff is there. And then he'll help tell stories about his work on it. We have a gentleman does the same thing for an F15 that we have.So we have again, there's a lot of passion and spree decor and so on with these gentlemen and ladies who worked on these aircraft and going even to this SR71. We have a gentleman who was one of the people that worked at the jet propulsion side of that. And he just loves talking about how.Because that engine on that SR71 is a marvel in itself and how it operates, air aspirated. And so it's. Again, it just drives. It drives them. Which helps keep us excited about what we do here at the museum too.

Arnold00:33:22

We've been talking to Terry Howell. He's the chief operating officer for the Evergreen Aviation and space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.Folks, if you get a chance to get up there, please do. You will not be disappointed at all. Terry, thanks very much for coming on St. Louis and Tomb.We greatly appreciate the information and what you're doing up there to get keep aviation and space going.

Terry00:33:44

Certainly my pleasure and thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity.

Arnold00:33:48

What a great time talking to Terry Howell.Folks, I want to give you the website for the museum because you should check out some of the videos that they have, some of the other information that they have.It's evergreenmuseum.org, evergreenmuseum.org they were listed as one of the 10 best aviation museums in the United States by Travel and Leisure magazine. I can't believe that they probably to me, they're only one of the top three.I know the Smithsonian has one and I mentioned earlier the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. They're also, by the way, affiliated with the Smithsonian Museum. They're a Smithsonian affiliate. So great group of folks.You'll just be awed you can spend at least a day there. Didn't get completely through the space portion just because was running out of time.So make sure that you plan to go to McMinnville and you plan to go to this particular museum. Block out the whole day. There's a lot of great stuff for kids to do there and I want to encourage you to do that. So a little mental floss here.Here's some thinking things. You think of all the states and all the capitals in the United States.There are four states whose first letter is also the first letter, the city in which is a capital. In other words, here in Missouri we have Jefferson City. J and M for Missouri. That doesn't work.But there are four states in the United States that the first letter of the capital city is the same as the first letter of the state. Do you know what those are? Okay, here's one of them. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Here's another one. Indianapolis, Indiana.Did any of you get Honolulu, Hawaii? And the last one, this is a hard one. Dover, Delaware. Dover, Delaware. Yeah. Yeah. How about that one?Oh, for those of you that didn't get it, I'm so sorry. We're going to close out the show with some jokes and Mark's favorite kind of thing. Mark's favorite kind of funnies.So I just sold my homing pigeon on ebay for the 22nd time. Signs seen. This is a sign that is seen the back of a van driver is old. Can't hear your horn, can't see your finger. Have a nice day.What do we learn from cows, buffaloes and elephants? It's impossible to reduce weight by eating grass and salads and walking Tum should sell pumpkin spice flavored antacids and call them autumns.And where do pirates buy their hooks? At secondhand stores. My wife asked me if I could clear the kitchen table. Well, I had to get a running.

Better Rate Mortgage00:37:08

Start, but I made it.

Arnold00:37:11

And I've often heard that icy is the easiest word to spell. Looking at it now, I see why. And what do you call a belt made of watches? A waste of time. When people pay, they buy a lot of bottled water.And people pay a fortune for those little bottles of Evian water. Then I read it backwards and scientists have found that cows produce more milk when the farmer talks to them.Apparently it's a case of in one ear and out the udder. Lastly, a warning sign. We don't care if you smoke in this room. We don't care if you play poker naked.However, both of these things are illegal in Louisiana. If caught by a state trooper, citations will be issued. And here's the dad joke of the day. What happens when a microscope runs into a telescope?They kaleidoscope. Oh, goodness gracious. That's all for this hour. Thanks for listening, folks.If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@stlintune.com consider leaving a review on our website, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow. Thanks to Bob Berthiselle for our theme music, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage.Our guest, Terry Howell, chief operating officer for the Evergreen Aviation and space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, and want to thank co host Mark Langston. And we thank you folks for being part of our community of curious minds.St. Louis in tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network. Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy and let your light shine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.