The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Tuskegee Airman Harold Brown to appear at LCC
Lakeland Community College is hosting a presentation by husband-and-wife coauthors Nov. 8.
Lakeland Community College is hosting a presentation by husband-and-wife coauthors Harold Brown and Marsha Bordner Nov. 8 about the couple’s new book, Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman.
Brown graduated from then Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in 1944 before being assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group, which was home to the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed African-American U.S. Armed Services pilots who flew and fought in World War II.
“During World War II, he flew 30 missions as a bomber-escort fighter pilot before being shot down on a strafing mission and held as a German prisoner of war. General George Patton’s forces liberated him in 1945,” according to a news release from Lakeland. “After the war ended, he continued to serve in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant colonel with 23 years of active duty service.”
Brown, now 92 and one of the last remaining Tuskegee Airmen, will discuss the book with his wife and coauthor, the college reports. A book signing will follow.
The presentation Nov. 8 comes by way of a chance meeting between Mary Goss-Hill, who works in the Women’s Center at Lakeland, and Bordner, who were “buddies” on a trip to Asia.
“We traveled to China together in 2013,” Goss-Hill said in an Oct. 31 phone interview. “We had to have buddies, you know, because you couldn’t just go off on your own. So, when you’re in China for 18 days, you have a buddy.”
She said they became fast friends on that trip and got to know one another well.
“You sort of expose stories, ideas, even secrets,” she said, referring to the time the pair spent together. “And she shared with me that she is married to an African American man who was a Tuskegee Airman.”
Goss-Hill said Bordner also shared with her that she’d been working over the years on a biographical story about Brown. So, when it came out in August, Goss-Hill knew she wanted to help the couple promote it.
She said she also thinks the book represents an important part of history about which many young people might not be aware.
“It’s really all about history and so many of us don’t know the history of African Americans,” she said. “It’s important because (the remaining Tuskegee Airmen) are aging now and they made this contribution as American soldiers. So we need to give them recognition.”
She said she especially hopes young people who come to the presentation will be inspired by what they learn there.
“It was really my goal to reach out to high-school and elementary-school aged students and have their teachers bring them here to witness this,” she said. “We’ve got to keep history alive, especially with the younger generation.”
She said that she feels like so many children are undecided about what their future should become and that sometimes all it takes is a good story to spark an otherwise unrealized interest.
“Sometimes all it takes is a story to spark an interest in a child or even a teenager,” she said, adding that “everybody can’t go to college. Somebody’s got to go to the military, too.”
Following his own military career, Brown, now 92, served as vice president of academic affairs at Columbus State Community College before retiring, Lakeland reports. Bordner, also an educator, is retired from her post as president of Terra Community College in Fremont, Ohio.
The presentation Nov. 8 at Lakeland is scheduled from noon to 1 p.m., after which copies of the couple’s book will be available for $35 each, along with an opportunity for them to be signed by Bordner and Brown.