Waupaca County Veteran Service Officer, Jon LiDonne had been aware of the Honor Flight Network
and the hub that started up in La Crosse for a couple of years, when he finally decided that there needed to be an Honor Flight
presence in Northeast Wisconsin. LiDonne consulted with Stars & Stripes Honor Flight out of Milwaukee and coordinated
the first informational session.
The Honor Flight concept was introduced to about 50 people on June
2, 2009 at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel & Conference Center in Appleton, WI. Shortly after this first meeting,
Drew MacDonald, an Appleton attorney, and his wife Diane also began checking into an Honor Flight program for
Northeast Wisconsin and learned of the efforts already underway. LiDonne and MacDonald met and discussed their
mutual interests in a successful Honor Flight program. LiDonne left this meeting and went directly to the Outagamie
County Regional Airport to discuss Honor Flight with leadership at the airport. He was introduced to Kim Sippola,
Marketing Manager for the Outagamie County Regional Airport. Sippola knew of Honor Flight from an airport
where she previously worked and was thrilled to become involved.
By mid-July 2009, the Board
was established with Drew MacDonald as President and Ron Lecker as Secretary. One of the Board's first actions
was to vote on a name. "Old Glory Honor Flight" was chosen. At this first official
Board meeting, LiDonne challenged the Board to complete the first flight by the fall of the same year. Old Glory
Honor Flight proceeded to hold their first fund-raiser at the American Legion Post #38 in Appleton on August 26. With
what seemed an unrealistic goal, Old Glory Honor Flight planned for, raised funds for and successfully completed its first
flight October 27, 2009, just 2 months after fund-raising began.
Through the
hard work from Board Members like Jeff Smoot and Kim Sippola along with the airport logistics team, Diane MacDonald as
Treasurer and applications/correspondence processing, Mayor Richard Beggs of Clintonville, with help from his spouse,
also working with applications and making phone calls, Ron Lecker setting up a tremendous website and keeping the meetings
on track with accurate agendas and minutes and everyone working on fund raising and donations when & where they could,
all 95 WWII Veterans had a safe and extremely enjoyable trip.
We plan to continue this program until EVERY WWII VETERAN gets the
opportunity to visit their memorial, and will proceed to offer honor flights to veterans of other armed conflicts in
the future.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Drew MacDonald, President
Jon LiDonne, Vice President / Deputy Secretary
Diane MacDonald, Treasurer
Ron Lecker, Secretary
/ Web Master
Dan Naylor
Don Pavlat
Kim Sippola
Scott Delsart
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