Decatur students take in aviation, military history from local museum
FAYETTEVILLE — As students from Decatur High School began unloading their bus Thursday morning, a sense of excitement and wonder filled each of them as the group began a journey into the world of aviation and military history.
The group gathered just outside of the old white hangar building just after 9 a.m. for a two-hour tour of the Arkansas Air and Military Museum located at Drake Field in Fayetteville. There they were met by Laci Shuffield, the museum director, who conducted the tour through the four buildings and outdoor exhibits that make up the AAMM complex.
The AAMM came to life in 1986 after then Fayetteville mayor Marilyn Johnson approached a group of aviation enthusiasts, including local aviation legend Ray Ellis, with the idea of formulating a new use for the old white hangar building which was constructed in 1943-1944. The Arkansas Air Museum came to life a few months later as the first operational civil aviation museum in Arkansas.
At around the same time, a group of retired veterans and military history buffs came together to form the World War Two Museum Association. This group started at the Springdale Airport at about the same time as the AAM. But soon the World War Two group made a deal to take over the Fix Base Operation at Siloam Springs’ Smith Field and the group packed up all their planes and trucks and moved west.
Eventually, the World War Two Museum became the Ozark Military Museum and in 2002 built a new hanger at the Fayetteville airport next to the white hanger building. The two organizations eventually merged and became the AAMM.
As the group from Decatur entered the white hangar, they were met with several displays and, of course, a gift shop. The first two displays the kids looked at had some ties to the Decatur
area. The first was a display honoring Raymond J. Ellis, the aviation pioneer responsible for bringing Northwest Arkansas into the age of modern air travel.
In the early 1950s, Ellis began flying baby chicks to markets on the east coast for Decatur entrepreneur Lloyd Peterson. Together, Peterson and Ellis developed and implemented the construction of the Crystal Lake Airport, which is just north of Decatur.
The second connection has a park named after him. World War I flying ace Field Kindley was a native of Gravette who later became one of the few WWI American aces. Kindley Park in central Gravette has a Lockheed T-33 training jet, which served at a U.S airbase that bears Kindley’s name, on a pedestal in the southwest corner of the park.
The Decatur kids went on to see exhibits. Then it was time to step out into the hangar itself. As they did so, many of them marveled at the many different types of aircraft and the architecture of the all-wood aircraft hangar itself.
At the end of the white hangar, the group gathered around an old 1946 Willys Jeep (CJ2A). This vehicle has a direct connection to Decatur. It was owned and restored by longtime resident D.K. Bredehoeft. After painting the jeep, Bredehoeft donated it to the Ozark Military Museum in 2005.
The next exhibit that Shuffield took the Decatur bunch to see was probably one of the most interesting in the collection and one the kids got a first-hand look at. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo transport aircraft was donated to the museum in 2019.
Museum staff worked to get this aircraft lighted so that visitors can get a good look at the inside working of the Hercules. The Decatur kids were fascinated with the size and the complexity of this military workhorse.
Moving on, the kids spent the next 45 minutes touring the three military buildings of the former Ozark Military Museum. These buildings were filled with aircraft, helicopters, vehicles and other military artifacts, including another popular exhibit for the kids, a British Ferret light armored scout car complete with a 50 caliber machine gun. Several of the Decatur kids got a chance to climb into the vehicle and check it out firsthand, then climb out of the narrow driver’s escape hatch.
After a stop in the exhibition building, where artifacts from rifles to uniform patches to sabers to a portable communion set were on display, the students made a final stop at the museum gift shop before departing and heading for home.