Photos by Erich Schlegel

Leadership Lake Travis members, from left, Jason Zbranek, Peg Braxton, Mary Lynne Gibbs and Jan Moreland take an aerial tour Jan. 12 over south Lake Travis courtesy of Lakeway Airpark.

The delivery date had arrived – Jan. 12 was upon us and our Leadership Lake Travis team sprang into action hoping and praying that our five months of labor would pay off.
Real estate formed the theme for the   Jan. 11 class that our five-person, one steering committee-member team had sweated over night and day, day and night, to create and host.
I am proud to call Melissa Takamatsu, Shane Holsinger, Mike Mudd, Matt Womack and Karen Reich my teammates. I would have to say that doing what hasn’t been done before and stepping out of our comfort zones led to an amazing experience.
To say we became like family as we organized the daylong event would be too melodramatic, but I felt like we developed exactly what Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce hoped we would – a greater understanding of our community, each other and ourselves.
What did I learn? That maybe I’m not cut out for event planning, but at least I have walked a half-mile in that profession’s shoes and gained a greater appreciation for just how much weather forecasting and menu planning goes into hosting an event.
Yes, a competitive spirit exists among the seven teams to put on the best day, but I went about my brainstorming, begging and bribery – a free lunch is sometimes all it takes – to line up speakers and dining venues, with the goal of class members walking away having learned something and hopefully enjoying themselves.
So, you are probably wondering when I’m going to talk about the planes. The photos kind of give that away, don’t they?
Inspired by Lakeway Airpark’s Young Eagles events where licensed pilots introduce families with children to airplanes and flying as they take short aerial tours over south Lake Travis, I thought our leadership class would benefit from a bird’s-eye view of residential and commercial developments.
The views would provide a completely different perspective – one we could not possibly get by riding in a bus to all the locations in one day.
We started off, first, by fueling up at breakfast at the Grille at Rough Hollow and then learning where all this growth came from during presentations on Lakeway’s history from author Lew Carlson and city archivist Mike Boston who showed us footage of the opening of Lakeway Inn, which is now Lakeway Resort and Spa.
Speaking of perspective, knowledge of the city’s origins is critical to understanding its identity and future.
“The story of Lakeway is the story of people who worked without pay and volunteered their time, their talents and their efforts to create this city,” Carlson said.
Improvising a bit, we threw a willing Boston on our bus to teach us about the new Liebelt cabin that the city and Heritage Commission members are restoring on City Hall land before heading to the airpark.
A cold front had moved in the night before and threatened to be the Big Bad Wolf that would blow all our plans down with wind gusts of up to 40 mph that morning, but by the time we arrived there, some minor turbulence was all the fairy tale foe could muster.
Airpark pilots Erik Mulloy, Rich Judd, Peter Caciola, Russ Norwood, Steve Harris and Jeff Klass flew 31 passengers in first-class style in their Pipers, Beeches and Cessnas over Steiner Ranch, Rough Hollow, Flintrock Falls, Serene Hills, the Falconheads, Reserve at Lake Travis, Rocky Creek and Spanish Oaks.
Views of what’s left of Lake Travis as well as Mansfield Dam, Lakeway Regional Medical Center and Hill Country Galleria rounded out the flight path.
For those on the ground, our leadership team assembled a team of experts in homebuilding, real estate and home finance to update the class on the latest trends and data in their professions.
Steve Zbranek, chamber chairman and a pilot himself, was right at home in the airpark boardroom as he, real estate agent Kenn Renner and mortgage lender Bart Bade of iBank talked about the homebuyer’s advantage but the difficulty for home sellers.
Zbranek explained that interest from out-of-town homebuyers had picked up over the holidays for Zbranek & Holt Custom Homes and more people are looking to smart home technology and green building, which does cost more.
“If you want to go off the grid and do the Al Gore-get-rid-of-your-carbon-footprint thing, I can do that for you, but it will cost you a lot of money,” Zbranek said.
Class member and homebuilder Wes Wiggington shared that more of his company’s customers also were looking for smaller, higher-quality homes.
Renner presented an aerial video he took of an expanded flight route and discussed home starts and sales activity in the various south Lake Travis residential developments.
Watching the video opened some class members’ eyes to the severity of dropping lake levels. Some of them who work on the lake said they had no idea just how low the waterlines had fallen.
“In general, the lake level has caused a slowdown in lakefront property [sales], and it affects their value, especially ones that are sitting up in coves that are now dry. It used to be that any normal level from 650-685 [feet] would provide just a small lake view in those coves,” Renner said.
Residential developments along Texas Highway 71 are starting to take off, such as Serene Hills and Canyons of Sweetwater.
“West Cypress Hills has been kind of spotty on its sales. Rocky Creek was a surprise victory. There are a lot of families with multiple kids moving in, and that’s what has been putting the pressure on Bee Cave Elementary,” Renner said.
Although we feasted on knowledge, our class sailed over to Café Blue in Hill Country Galleria to fill up on coastal dishes and be flooded with even more information.
Often, a planning or building director at a city can make or break a permit, and Shannon Burke, Lakeway’s director of building and development services, is no stranger to sitting on the hot seat during zoning and planning commission and city council meetings as developers and residents grill him on details.
Burke fired off some questions of his own in a pop quiz that tested class members’ acuity of sign and code ordinances and taught them that pancake-wearing, arrow sign-holding advertisements are not allowed in Lakeway.
“If there’s one thing to take away from this presentation, it’s that everything requires a permit in Lakeway, and if you’re not sure come and ask us,” he said.
One class member’s Freudian slip tripped him up to ask if certain signs in the city are godfathered, instead of grandfathered, which pulls back the curtain a little bit on how some business owners feel about municipal control of signs.
Burke gave an overview of commercial projects coming to Lakeway that include Lakeway Regional Medical Center, Holiday Inn Express and H-E-B Grocery Store on Texas 71.
Other class members salivated over the prospects of new businesses opening in Lake Travis.
The ladies quizzed Edvin Beasley of Stream Realty if retailers such as Ann Taylor Loft were eyeing a relocation or new store opening.
His partner Kevin Granger said the national leasing outlook is pretty bleak for building and property owners as many five- to seven-year office leases are expiring and the once-white hot market has frozen.
Companies are now downsizing or renegotiating leases that are 20-40 percent of their initial rates.
Granger, however, said he is glad to wake up every day to work in the Austin market that is bucking the trend and that his initial impression was wrong about trying to get dormant office space up and running at Hill Country Galleria. He originally thought no one would want to move out to Bee Cave.
In about 17 months, Stream has filled Hill Country Galleria office space to near capacity,” he said. “We’re blowing and going. We’re hiring people. We are doing leases. Everything is crazy.”
Because he was talking about Austin, I’m pretty sure he meant crazy in a good way.
The don of Lakeway residential development, Legend Communities principal Haythem Dawlett, took us on tours of Tuscan Village and the site of Rough Hollow’s future Lake Highlands amenity center, which some are comparing to a little Schlitterbahn.
Tuscan Village offers several different residential floorplans for active adults at Lohmans Crossing at 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 square feet.
“You can buy a whole floor and just be the granddaddy and just have the penthouse,” Dawlett said joking.
Judd Brook, sales and marketing team leader at XL Legacy International Resort Properties, showed us two houses on the market that wowed with ornate designs and furnishings.
After a long day of activity and education, we wrapped up with a rousing performance by the Lake Travis Fiddlers back at the Grille at Rough Hollow.
Much like returning from a whirlwind vacation, I wished the feeling didn’t end but I’m definitely relieved to have a month to recuperate before the next Leadership day.
Thankfully, I can now resume my observer status and see what else Lake Travis has to offer.
What’s next, Leadership class?

BELOW: Lakeway Airpark pilots took Leadership Lake Travis class members on aerial tours over several residential and commercial developments in the south Lake Travis area Jan. 12.

Photo by Erich Schlege

Robert Brewer, second from left in foreground, celebrates his first meeting as Lake Travis ISD’s newest board member May 19 with his wife, Laura, and their children, from left, Katie, Charlie and Michael.

He’s laid the football helmet down, but Robert Brewer still wants to be part of the team.

Last week he took his place on the Lake Travis ISD team as the district’s newest board member. Brewer, who was unopposed in the May election to replace retiring board member Mayo Davidson, took office at May 19’s regular board meeting.

He had been contemplating a campaign for two or three years, but the decision to run all came down to timing, something that comes naturally to the former University of Texas quarterback.

A window in Brewer’s work, church and Little League coaching considerations opened up as his oldest son, Michael, finished leading the Lake Travis High School football team to its fourth consecutive District 4A state championship in his senior year.

“It was easy to not seriously consider it, but then it all came together right here in the last couple of months,” he said. “It’s become clear to me that it’s the right time to do it right now. I’m not doing this to get anything out of it. I don’t have an agenda.”

He realizes that anyone voluntarily choosing to serve on a school board is in store for a mountain of challenges and responsibilities.

“I don’t think we are too gullible or naïve going into this. I read the paper and I see the issues with school finance in the state. I understand where the district is with regard to its need to handle its [student] capacity,” Brewer said. “Demand is exceeding supply with facilities.”

While the clock is ticking at the Capitol, the time for LTISD to move forward is at hand.

“I think there is tremendous momentum in this district right now, albeit in a really rough economic landscape,” he said. “We want to keep the ball rolling for Lake Travis Independent School District. We are only a few of hundreds, but if we can roll our sleeves up and help out, that’s what we want to do.”

Now a senior vice president of investments at Merrill Lynch in Lakeway, Brewer values the quality of the education that has been instrumental to his successes. Education, he says, remains a top priority for him at home, and throughout the district.

“In my house, education comes first — period,” Brewer said. “As you get out in the competitive world, it sure helps to be equipped with a solid education where the bar is, if not the highest, at least at a higher level.”

Those values emanate from his upbringing.

“I had great parents. They were real encouragers,” Brewer said. “My father never pressured me in any way, but because I liked my dad and I knew how much he loved me, I kind of wanted to be like him.”

His father, Charlie, led his high school team to a state championship his senior year before playing quarterback at UT from 1953-55.

Brewer followed suit. He led the Horns to a 13-2 record in 1981-82 and downed Alabama in the 1982 Cotton Bowl Classic with a fourth-quarter comeback.

The nationally televised game and stakes didn’t faze him a bit.

“Alabama was such a traditional powerhouse. Bear Bryant was on the other sideline in his houndstooth hat — just an epic figure,” Brewer said. “It was really a thrill to participate in a game like that. Those are once-in-a-lifetime chances. Outside of getting married and having a family, that’s right close behind it as the most memorable time of my life.”

As his father passed on his life experiences to Brewer, so have he and his wife, Laura, raised their children — Michael, who enrolled early at Texas Tech University, LTHS freshman Katie and Lake Travis Middle School sixth-grader Charlie — with their faith at the core.

“It’s not exclusive to any sport or any particular activity. I think you see it in all facets of life,” Brewer said of passing passions down generations. “It’s natural. I never pushed my kids into [sports] at all. That’s been their choice. It’s not an end; it’s a means to an end to try to help you get ready for what’s really important, which is finding out what you are going to do with your life.”

He admits that a competitive fire that helped him excel in his younger years.

“I like to think that I’ve tempered that as I’ve gotten a few gray hairs,” the 50-year-old said.

Despite the glory and prestige that come with victory, Brewer wanted to be more than a football player.

He graduated from UT in 1984 with a business communications degree and a budding romance with Laura, who he met through teammate, Rob Moerschell.

Brewer went to work as a Realtor for commercial firm Hank Dickerson & Co. in Dallas from 1984-86, but UT Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds called with a job offer to return to the school as a development fundraiser.

“It was great in one sense because it allowed me to build relationships with people that I do business with today,” he said. “It was good for my career, but it wasn’t as much fun as going to school and playing ball.”

At the time, the athletic department was raising ticket prices, which rankled long-time supporters.

“The alums were used to a more affordable, easier deal. We were transitioning out of that, and that was difficult,” he recalled.

After working seven years there and marrying Laura, he moved to Merrill Lynch in downtown Austin where he worked for 15 years before transferring to the company’s Lakeway office.

In 2001, his family moved from Austin to Lake Pointe based upon Laura’s extensive research into teachers and standardized test scores at LTISD.

“We had heard good things about Eanes and Lake Travis. We knew we were coming to a good place, but we had no idea just how good at that time,” he said.

As he and Laura observed the results of their children’s education, he decided to give back by serving on the board of trustees.

“My kids have just been the beneficiaries of a lot of good decision-making and good personnel and progress that it’s been beyond our best hopes,” Brewer said. “So, we want to give something back. I feel a sense of responsibility here. We owe something to this community.”

Brewer looks to hand the ball off to a running back while leading the Longhorns in action.

The Buzzard Bump sponsored by the Spicewood Lions Club will feature live music, a children’s carnival, car show, “bird” cook-off and washer tournament as well as more than 80 merchandise and food vendors.

The live music line-up promises to offer something for everyone throughout the day with Jeff Strahan Band, Tessie Lou Williams and The Hilltop Hillbillies topping the list.

Admission is $2 per person or two canned goods with donations going to Helping Hand Crisis Ministry of Spicewood. Children 3 and younger will be admitted free.

Proceeds will go to support charitable organizations and projects within the community.

Past recipients of funds from this event include Spicewood Volunteer Fire Dept/EMS, Spicewood Community Center, Spicewood Elementary School PTO, Pedernales Fire Dept/EMS, Helping Hand Crisis Ministry, Adopt-A-Highway Trash Pick-up and Early Childhood Vision Screening.

“This is a great way to support the community and the service organizations who give so much of their time to make Spicewood a great place to live,” said Tommy Quinn, owner of title sponsor Spicewood Plumbing and Propane.

Some might wonder how the festival earned its name.

“The buzzard has been adopted as the unofficial bird of Spicewood, so we thought it would be fitting to name our local festival after the oft-maligned and misunderstood bird,” said Brett Weiss, marketing director for the Spicewood Lions Club.

Alcoholic beverages and ice chests may be brought into the event, and friendly, leashed pets are welcome.

While some seating will be provided near the music stage and at various “Rest Your Buns” sponsor tables in the dining tent, guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets.

The winner of this year’s “Bird Cook-off” will receive a trophy, $100 cash and $150 gift certificate to Barbeques Galore in The Shops at the Galleria. Second and third prizes consist of $100 and $50 gift certificates. The cook-off is open to any type of (non-protected) fowl cooked in any style. The buzzard is a protected specie and is prohibited from the cook-off.

“Last year’s entries were amazing,” said Leta Paradise, Lions Club president. “The winning entry was a boudin-stuffed cornish game hen with a crawfish bordelaise sauce. This year’s entries promise to be just as creative and delectable.”

Waylon Payne performs at last year's Spicewood Lions Club Buzzard Bump.

The Road Kill Car Show is accepting entries of cars, trucks and motorcycles in several categories including antique, muscle and custom. Trophies will be awarded to first, second and third places in each category as well as an overall People’s Choice Award.

The children’s carnival area will include bounce houses, music and games as well as face painters and balloon artists.

A new addition to this year’s Buzzard Bump is the Washer Pitching Tournament. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top two teams.

“We encourage all area churches and community service organizations to participate. It provides a unique opportunity to reach folks outside their usual circle and increase awareness of their organizations and activities,” said Ginny Jacks, community liaison for the Spicewood Lions Club. Nonprofit organizations may distribute information about their organization, and they may accept donations to their organization during the event.

Paradise said the Lions Club has built on a strong inaugural festival.

“Last year’s event was our first and the turnout was excellent,” she said. “Now that we have that first year under our belt, we are looking forward to a Buzzard Bump that is bigger and better than ever.”

For information about the Spicewood Buzzard Bump or the Spicewood Lions Club, visit www.spicewoodbuzzardbump.com or www.spicewoodlions.org, call (830) 637-9843 or email andy@agilehandymanservices.com.

Entry forms for sponsorships, the cook-off, motorcycle and car show, washer tournament, nonprofits and merchandise and food vendors also are available at the Buzzard Bump web site.

The women donned gloves and hats and shared a proper afternoon tea and threw a champagne toast as they tuned in to the highly anticipated nuptials watched by an estimated 2 billion viewers worldwide.

Just don’t tell the newlyweds that some of the local ladies didn’t wake up to watch the ceremony live.

Their absences didn’t dampen the ceremony or festivities that played out during a watching party of the recording Friday afternoon at Maxine Beeskow’s Lakeway house.

“It was so much pomp. That gorgeous church – the inside of it was magnificent,” said Jo Kirk, president of the Solos social group that comprises widows from Lakeway and The Hills. “The ceremony was so formal. All the people in the crowd were so wonderful. It was very special.”

Other Solos explained their attraction to the royal family.

“It’s exciting,” said Alice Paez of Lakeway. “We don’t have royalty in the United States, so we have to borrow royalty from England.”

Princess Catherine’s wedding dress drew high praise while the English custom of wedding hats brought back memories for some.

Ballard, left, and Murray take a break for afternoon tea.

“Nobody over here wears hats,” Paez said. “I’m old enough to remember the days when we had to wear hats. When I was a teen-ager we would go to the train station to go to my grandparents’ house. My mother insisted we wear our hats and gloves, and this was a dirty train station.”

Everyone steamed up when William and Catherine’s kissed on Buckingham Palace’s balcony.

“He gave her two kisses, and boy that was the whole talk,” Kirk said. “I guess [Princess] Di getting a kiss from Prince Charles didn’t mean anything.”

Pam Murray, who lived in Northumberland, Kent and Cheshire before moving to Canada and then Lakeway 19 years ago, remembered hearing that Edmund Hilary had climbed Mount Everest the night before the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana Spencer.

Texas twang rang in Murray’s ears as she tried to catch her mates up to speed on proper etiquette and vocabulary.

“It’s ti-ara by the way,” she said when one friend was describing the “ti-erra” Queen Elizabeth loaned to Catherine for the wedding. “And they don’t get coronated — as they said on the program this morning — they get crowned when they have a coronation.”

As the kettle boiled, Murray educated the gathering on the difference between the lighter afternoon tea of cucumber sandwiches and heavier afternoon tea that typically includes Shepherd’s Pie or a plate of ham and eggs.

“We’re just going to be the death of you,” said Ann Ballard of Lakeway.

Pre-ceremony debates raged in print and on the telly over Middleton’s commoner background with some prognosticators forecasting a unifying effect and others spouting anti-royalty sentiments.

“To us Americans, it doesn’t make any difference,” Paez said.

The Solos offshoot formed four years ago when Pat Jacobsen suggested an activity for some less-active members.

“A lot of the Solos aren’t active enough to get out and run races and take walks and all,” Kirk said.

They struck upon English television series and began watching “Upstairs, Downstairs” on DVD and continued watching English comedies and dramas every Thursday. This week, the group started the “Brideshead Revisited” mini-series.

“We enjoy the camaraderie with our friends. We all have a good time,” Paez said.

“We’ve been going forever,” Kirk said.

To complete his missions as a reconnaissance pilot in Korea and Vietnam, he would sometimes land a burning plane riddled with bullet holes, but he always escaped with the photographs his country needed.

Edwards described the sorties as a game of fox and hound – that’s the only way he could keep going through the nightmare of war.

Today, the Lakeway resident shrugs off the medals and ranks he racked up as he part of doing his job, letting his actions speak rather than words, a trait that he still exhibits today.

Before he retired from the Air Force in 1984, Edwards logged more than 7,000 hours of flying in jets and 2,000 hours in civilian planes, received the Bronze Star, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Air Force Distinguished Service Medal and two Legions of Merit as well as the Wings of the Luftwaffe German Air Force and Wings of the Korean Air Force.

That Edwards would become a military pilot became evident early on, when he flew his first covert missions as a teen.

As he relates his memories of flying at break-neck speeds, surviving war and traveling the world, very little seems to have rattled him except for the night that his grandfather — who raised him — discovered he had secretly been taking flying lessons as a 15-year-old.

Born in 1929 in Nashville, Tenn. and raised in nearby Crossville, Edwards played hooky from high school and hitchhiked 40 miles to take flying lessons paid for with his paper route earnings. He had confided in a friend about his secret activities, but that mistake nearly cost him when that buddy accidentally spilled the beans to Dr. V.L. Lewis.

The physician, who with his wife, raised Edwards when his parents separated and his mother passed away from a brain tumor, did not bring such discussions to the dinner table, so he told George that the matter would be discussed in the morning in his office.

“I sweated that night,” Edwards recalled.

His grandfather relented and helped the teenager buy his first airplane to fly higher and faster out of the mountains of Tennessee and across the wild blue yonder.

“They supported me in everything,” Edwards said of his grandparents.

Edwards soloed when he turned 16 and flew light airplanes over his home state and the Southeast as he graduated high school and the University of Tennessee in 1951.

“I flew around different places just for the fun of it,” he recalled.

It wasn’t just a hobby for Edwards; he knew he wanted to be an Air Force or Navy pilot.

Edwards climbs into a fighter for one of his many missions during a long and decorated Air Force flying career.

Before he graduated from college he applied to the Air Force, and he immediately enlisted to receive officer and flying training as an aviation cadet. He graduated from flying school in June 1952 at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma with a commission as second lieutenant. From there he transferred to Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C., for combat crew training.

Amid all his accomplishments as a leader and pilot, Edwards ranks meeting his future wife Jho “JoJo” Stewart at Shaw and then marrying her at the top.

“She’s part of the team. She did an awful lot to help me. She raised our kids and took care of everything,” said Edwards, recalling the family moved 28 times.

Edwards was assigned to the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea in January 1953, where he flew 101 combat missions in RF-80s. Military jets were still fairly new at the time, and Edwards and his unit flew propeller P-51 Mustangs in their early missions.

“I had plenty of missions where I was evading” bogies, he said. “It was all fun. You have to look at it as fun because if you can’t you have to look at it as misery.”

He still remembers how South Koreans scraped to survive.

“I thought Korea was the most pathetic case that humanity can experience. The people only had a shirt on their back. Everything over there was flattened by the war back and forth,” Edwards recalled. “They were living like their ancestors did a long time ago. I felt so sorry for them. I was glad I was able to contribute.”

He returned home to marry JoJo on Aug. 30, 1953, in her hometown of Sumter, S.C. They weren’t there long before Edwards was transferred to serve as a jet flying instructor with Air Training Command at Bryan Air Force Base. There, he and JoJo had two children, George III and Paula Jho.

In 1959, back in California after several stops including one at Edwards AFB in California where he set the world speed record in the 315-mile closed circuit egg-shaped course with an average speed of more than 816 mph in a RF-101 Voodoo, a record that for several years.

“It’s the airplane, not me,” he told The Nashville Tennessean at the time. “The flight was routine. The plane ran like a scalded dog … .”

No matter how modest he remained about his achievements, the Air Force promoted him to newer heights. Edwards assisted West Germany in re-establishing its air force and served as advisor to the newly formed wings at Erding, Ingolstadt and Eggebeck, Germany, which earned him Luftwaffe wings.

“It was interesting. I got to know all the German aces from World War II,” he remembered. “We’d talk about World War II from their perspective.”

He later did his tour in Vietnam as commander of the 16th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, where he dodged anti-aircraft fire that threatened to punch holes in his RF-4C loaded with cameras and infrared sensors instead of missiles or bombs.

“On some of them you expected to get shot at and didn’t and some of them you didn’t expect to get shot at and did,” he said. “There was always a chance that you were going to get tagged, but to me that was just a challenge to see that I didn’t.”

His first experience with Austin came then when he was assigned as director of operations for the 75th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing and then the 67th at Bergstrom Air Force Base. He also commanded four flying squadrons and oversaw military and flying support for President Lyndon Johnson and the LBJ Ranch.

He has nothing but kind words for the presidential couple. He remembered Ladybird Johnson’s graciousness and was drawn to President Johnson’s charisma.

“You couldn’t help but like President Johnson when he walked a room. He had a magnetic personality,” Edwards said.

In 1974, Edwards earned the rank of brigadier general and an assignment to Langley again where he served as assistant deputy chief of logistics, inspector general, chief of staff and deputy chief of staff for planning.

Two years later, he was promoted to major general and returned to Bergstrom as vice commander of the 12th Air Force. As a general, Edwards bore the challenges of leading soldiers into combat as he was away from his wife and children.

“You’ve got a lot of people depending on you. You’ve got to set things up so all your people are going to be able to accomplish their mission successfully,” he said.

When he returned to South Korea as Air Force Commander in 1978, 26 years after serving as a lieutenant, the country’s quality of life surpassed his expectations.

“They had made a 1,000 years worth of progress. I was so proud of them,” Edwards said.

There, he served as commander of the U.S. Air Force in Korea as well as the Korean Air Defense Sector to direct all air activities in the country.

In 1979, South Korea awarded him Korean Air Force wings and in 1980 he received the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation and the Order of National Security Merit.

In 1984, he retired after 33 years in the Air Force.

“I’ve never had any second thoughts or misgivings about whether I was doing the right thing or not. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my career. I was happy and couldn’t wait each day to see what challenge I was going to have, whether flying, supervising or commanding,” he said.

After rubbing elbows with everyone from astronaut Gus Grissom to Ladybird Johnson to Hawaiian icon Don Ho, the Edwardses could have retired anywhere in the world and not been strangers, but Lakeway beat out Honolulu, Naples, Fla., and Tennessee as the place to rest their wings, if only for a moment.

“We love Lakeway, and we love Austin. My feet and my heart are here,” Edwards said. “JoJo and I keep trying to go full steam.”

He monitors current events, golfs and attends University of Tennessee football games while visiting friends back home. Occasionally, he will take the stick in a friend’s plane.Wherever he has gone and wherever he goes, Edwards will remain true to his philosophy of not being a sitting target. That has served him well into his later years.

“I figure as long as I can keep moving, I’m going to do that,” he said.

The Hills residents Bill and Reid Kirchenbauer have enjoyed their share of the spotlight. Bill starred in film and TV roles that spanned the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s highlighted by series appearances on “Fernwood 2 Night,” “Mork & Mindy” and “Growing Pains” and a lead role on its spin-off, “Just the Ten of Us.” Reid, 19, followed with commercials such as Toys “R” Us and Oscar Mayer and with a role as a Whobris in the Jim Carrey-film “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” in his youth.

The father-son duo also starred together as humans dressed as bunnies in a Toblerone Easter commercial.

Bill, who was adopted in Austria by a military family that moved about 12 times in 13 years, entertained to assimilate into each new neighborhood by doing puppet shows at school and then ventriloquism with a Jerry Mahoney puppet until he became a teenager.

“Then my buddies started asking me why I had so many dolls,” he joked.

As he took theater, Bill switched over to doing impressions as a teen-ager of John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and Hubert Humphrey and learned by watching Rich Little and David Frye.

After graduating from high school in 1971, he worked on the air at his college’s radio station for two years before following his girlfriend out to California. While the relationship didn’t pan out, he stuck around out west, mostly because he lacked the money to go home. So, he got an apartment on his own where his first pieces of furniture were his luggage.

He studied mime for three years, which he said led to some of the physical comedy he did such as impressions of a garbage truck, stick of chewing gum and a typewriter. Comedy, he found, was his calling.

His parents were supportive, but his father wanted him to have something to fall back on if comedy didn’t pan out.

“I told him, ‘Dad, there’s literally more guys that can cut your head open and take your brain out and show it to you and put it back in and sew it up, than do what I do. But that changed over the years,” Bill recalled of the days before comedy clubs and Comedy Central attracted a proliferation of punch line pretenders.

One night as he was performing, a group of shadowy figures walked into the club. They shuffled around in the back where he couldn’t see them, but the aspiring comedian was bothered by the commotion and told them to shut up or get out, which they did immediately without a scene. After the show, the stage manager told Bill he might as well leave town because he kicked out Merv Griffin and his producer.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God’ what have I done,’” he recalled.

The faux pas didn’t hinder his rise to stardom. He landed several appearances on “Fernwood 2 Night” as character Tony Rolletti based on a nightclub singer at a Holiday Inn where Bill worked as a busboy.

“That was the first acting I did where I got a check,” Bill said.

Bill’s career started to take off when he won the first and only L.A. Stand Up Competition where George Carlin was a judge.

“That’s how I became friends with him. I killed, and he came out and gave me a hug,” he recalled.

The victory propelled him onto “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” in the late ’70s, where he appeared 14 times.

“I’ve always been funny. I found it enjoyable. I like to watch people laugh,” Bill said.

He had met his wife, Lynn, while doing a show in Dallas and after trying the long-distance thing, she moved to L.A. and they married in 1988.

Bill got the shot at his big breakout role when his guest role as Coach Lubbock on “Growing Pains” caught the attention of studio executives and viewers. Lynn answered the phone one day and told Bill that three producers from “Growing Pains” all wanted to speak to him.

“I thought, ‘Oh, what did I do?’” he said, fearing that he might have accidentally held his hand so it looked like he was making a rude gesture on camera.

“I picked up the phone, and they said … ‘How would you like your own show,’” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was like one of those movie moments.”

A confusing title of “Just the Ten of Us” — think “Eight is Enough” — and lack of creative control hindered the show, Bill said, and after three seasons ABC cancelled it.

“It’s not exactly what I would have picked for myself, but I know great guys — very funny guys — that have been sucked up into the machinery of network television and spit out like white bread,” he said. “It happens all the time, and it’s hard. It’s art through committee.”

Bill continued his career, hosting talk shows and a hidden camera show, and Reid was born in 1992. They quickly found that the apple indeed didn’t fall far from the tree.

“People were attracted to him, and he was always friendly and outgoing,” said Bill, who found him an agent.

In Reid’s first commercial role he was dressed as a cowboy in a Pringles ad when he was 5 years old.

“I was very young at the time, but I took it pretty well I think. It was kind of natural to me,” he recalled.

Crackerjack, Toys “R” Us and Sears commercials followed. Reid’s acting highlight came in 2000, when he played an 8-year-old Whobris in a classroom flashback scene in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

He worked with director Ron Howard and watched Jim Carrey chase studio tour buses in his Grinch suit, in which he also smoked cigarettes.

“He was a great director, but I didn’t really know who [Howard] was. He was a very nice guy. I saw a little bit of Jim Carrey,” Reid said.

The city that fed their careers also threatened to devour their family’s happiness, and the lifestyle eventually convinced them to return to Lynn’s home in Texas.

Life in Texas has treated them well. Bill continues to do corporate and casino comedy shows, writes and creates podcasts in Texas while acting in some film roles and selling caviar to local restaurants.

Reid has developed an interest in international business and in 2013 plans to attend Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, which was founded by Northwestern University.

“It’s one of the nicest schools in southeast Asia,” he said in eager anticipation of moving into a condo paid for by his acting work and receiving his diploma from the king of Thailand.

Bill has embraced the Lake Travis area that he believes is ready for a comedy club that offers a different experience from the Austin comedy clubs that cater to college students’ tastes.

“There’s really nothing out here where you can go and have dinner and a show or some entertainment,” he said with ideas of bringing in a variety of acts such as jugglers, magicians and ventriloquists. “There’s a big spectrum of entertainment that could be done out here that I think would pull people in. I think people around here would eat it up.”

“At 5 years old I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I was a little stubborn about it,” de Cardenas, now 46, recalled. “I absolutely loved school, loved my teachers.”

She also displayed a passion for the arts, one her parents supported without question. When she wanted to take piano lessons, her parents bought a piano and hired a concert pianist who trained her for 13 years.

“They taught me to see the beauty in all things,” she said. “My exposure to the arts, I think, helped groom me to be in this role that I find myself in now.”

de Cardenas was teaching first and second grade in the Lake Travis ISD when her daughter Gabriella, then 5, discovered her own artistic passion while visiting New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The day after seeing the ballet “Giselle” there in 1999, Gabriella said she wanted to attend a school like its Lincoln Center Institute. de Cardenas recalled her parents delivering her piano years ago, and her mission became clear.

“I saw the need to create a space specifically focused on honing students’ artistic talents as well as their academic talents,” de Cardenas said.

She traveled the country, learning the best practices from several performing arts schools and visual arts academies. The canvas became clearer to her, but the responsibility of operating the school loomed large.

“I wasn’t completely convinced that I had what it would take to take on something as ambitious as this,” she said. “It got to the point where I was tormenting myself. This momentum started building and more and more people were stepping into my life [wanting me to start the school.] Then there were complete strangers who were saying, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’ And, I was saying, ‘No! No! No!’”

The burden lifted when several pieces fell into place, such as the connections to world-class performers who wanted to teach in Austin and board members who brought a variety of experience to guiding the school’s course.

“The pressure that I was feeling was lifted, and I knew with all my heart that I was going to have to surrender to this calling because I was never going to be able to sleep otherwise,” she said.

In 2006, she spearheaded the foundation of ASPVA as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. “That was our first major hurdle,” she said. “The thought of having to exclude somebody because they didn’t have the financial means to be able to attend a school like this was heartbreaking, so that was the reason for being a nonprofit.”

ASPVA began with a community outreach program, Connections, at participating public schools and other student organizations and has served more than 1,200 students and has offered numerous scholarships. Central Christian Church of Austin offered ASVPA space at its Guadalupe location, and renovations began in 2009 to prepare for full-time college preparatory curriculum and arts and wellness education for six grades.

ASVPA held its grand opening downtown in March 2010. It offers a Texas Education Agency-accredited curriculum through collaboration with Texas Tech University serving students in grades 6-12, including Gabriella, a junior.

She’s blessed, having achieved her dream that allows aspiring student-artists to reach theirs.

“I’m in a fortunate situation where I can do what I’m passionate about doing,” de Cardenas said. “I am completely convinced that I’ve been groomed my entire life to do exactly this. It’s been an incredible journey.”

Yocum is on a mission to walk 7,800 miles across the U.S. to raise awareness and $5 million for veterans who are returning home with scars of battle, both physical and psychological, and military families in need.

He set out on his Drum Hike on April 17, 2010, with his wife, Mareike, and dogs Emmie and Harley, from his hometown of Louisville, Ky., and made his way to California and walked back east to Texas.

After meeting Gov. Rick Perry, speaking before Austin City Council and having lunch with Lakeway Mayor Dave DeOme, they arrived in Lakeway on Jan. 27 to a warm reception at Lakeway City Hall.

Lakeway Mayor Dave DeOme (left) and Village of the Hills Mayor Doug Lindgren honored Troy Yocum at a Jan. 27 meeting.

DeOme and The Hills Mayor Doug Lindgren signed Yocum’s baseball bat that boasts signatures from governors and mayors across the U.S., and the City of Lakeway proclaimed Jan. 27 as Drum Hike For Heroes Day.

“I was very impressed with the young man and his commitment to do this,” DeOme said. “I think the plight of disabled veterans and injured veterans never gets the publicity and the individuals never get the recognition they deserve. The nation certainly doesn’t put the amount of money into [mental health services and dependent care] that they need to.”

Yocum’s foot was infected so he didn’t walk into and out of Lakeway banging his drum, but members of Huey 091 Foundation, a locally based veterans assistance nonprofit organization, helped him get medical treatment, and one of his friends pushed him in a wheelchair Saturday from Kyle to San Marcos with a Hays County sheriff escort.

On Tuesday he met with New Braunfels Mayor Bruce Boyer as Yocum continued his eastward journey, according to a Drum Hike Twitter announcement.

Yocum told the Lakeway crowd that one of his squadmates in the 100th Battalion 442 Infantry who had returned home two years ago lost his job and was going through tough times. Yocum decided to step in and help him out. He had developed contacts at several charities back in the U.S., but when he reached out to them on behalf of his friend, he ran into many closed doors.

“I really thought this next [charity] was going to be able to help him, but I would get the same answer over and over and over,” said Yocum, explaining that several could not help his friend while others would commit to accepting an application. “I sat there that night thinking, ‘Something needs to change. We need to help as many of these families as possible.’”

Although they are away from the front lines, these servicemen and servicewomen often fight Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety and depression. These wounded warriors frequently do not receive the social services they need and they and their families suffer the effects.

In a suicide prevention class the next day, Yocum learned the U.S. set an unwanted record in 2009 of veteran suicides. U.S. Army officials reported a slight reduction in 2010 in suicides committed by soldiers on active duty from 162 in 2009 to 156, but saw an increase in reservists who took their lives.

Yocum felt the increase was more than a coincidence; it was a problem he had to address.

“Something truly needs to be done across America, so we at least will start talking about these issues,” he recalled thinking at the time.

Hours later, he started drawing a map of the country and planning a 3,600-mile route. Little by little, the small operation became a mission and a cause that grew to 7,800 miles of roadways. Sponsors such as Louisville Slugger and Major League Baseball lined up. Yocum attended several MLB games in the 2010 season to walk the bases during seventh inning stretches.

After the Associated Press wire picked up an interview, the national media took notice of Drum Hike.

“The Ellen Show” has tracked his progress, and Diane Sawyer interviewed him via Skype.

“I don’t really credit myself for kick-starting things that charities have been doing for awhile, but at least it showed that an Iraq veteran is willing to walk across America in order to get people to start giving a damn about these problems,” Yocum said.

He said some interviewers attempted to get him to point fingers and cast blame, but he refused — not out of fear of retaliation but out of a positive philosophy.

“If we act positive and think positive then maybe positive things will come out of it,” Yocum said.

He hopes veterans would never turn their backs on their brethren who have recently returned home.

“We all were called to duty and we went off to serve, and when we return home we only hope that things will be a little bit better,” Yocum said. “Those days can be here as long as we want and wish them to come.”

The struggles that families have shared with Yocum spur him on through kidney stones, a foot infection, a trailer that broke down in El Paso and his dog Emmie’s near-fatal illness in Phoenix.

“No matter what, I’m proud that we keep going — we put one foot forward every single day,” he said. “That to me is the most important lesson that I’ve learned across America: If you want something, it is always achievable no matter how many obstacles are in your way.”

Thus far, Drum Hike has helped 30 families in need by raising $125,000 with donations coming in at every stop across the U.S. Drum Hike has partnered with Wish Upon A Hero Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, to accept contributions.

For information on Drum Hike, visit www.drumhike.com.

Wang (left) and Beals (right) have kept the LT offense running smooth all year / Scott Lineberry Photo

A good setter isn’t easy to find, or easy to train, for that matter.

It’s a point that Lake Travis head coach Julie Green stresses.

“It’s the most critical position,” Green said. “It’s like not having your point guard, not having your quarterback or not having your pitcher. We can do a lot more with a good setter.”

It’s quite handy then, that the Lady Cavaliers have two of the best setters in Central Texas, if not the state.

“Either one of them can run our offense fluidly, so the fact that we have two just makes us that much more versatile,” Green said.

Katy Beals and Cassie Wang couldn’t be more different at face value. Beals is a tall, lanky player that would appear to be out of position for most high school squads. Formerly a right side hitter, Green started working Beals into setting more often three years ago when she took over the program. Now Beals is on the radar screen of countless DI universities, and will undoubtedly end up at a strong program.
Wang is the prototypical high school setter. She’s close to the shortest girl on the Lake Travis roster, but always has a knack for being the right place at the right time. Her skills have her eyeing a college career, too.

“Cassie is very aggressive, very competitive,” Green said. “She’s smart and makes great decisions. So what she lacks in size, she makes up for in court sense. She runs the offense well, she’s a vocal leader and she plays great defense. She always brings some fire.”

Beals, aka Sweet Baby Beals aka SBB aka SB-squared – so named for her quiet demeanor, approaches things much differently in life.

“She never said a word for an entire year,” Green said. “Then she started coming out of her shell. She’s just so quiet. It’s been interesting and a lot of fun to see her transformation over the last three seasons because she’s a great leader and competitive.”

Their two stories start differently, but always seem to end in the same place.

“They’re different personalities, but I think their qualities are so similar,” Green said. “So competitive, so smart and so unselfish. Their job is about making everyone else look good, and they never say a word or complain.”

But neither comes across as advertised, although it could have been because they teamed up for their interview.

“When they get together, I’ve got no idea what they’re talking about,” Green joked. “They invent words like ‘sooo-uhhhh’ to start sentences. They sit together on the bus and laugh and I have no idea what they think is so funny.”

But the girls get it.

“A lot of what we talk about are inside jokes, so yeah, it probably doesn’t make sense to other people,” Beals conceded.

The role of the setter is to feed off of teammates, so it’s no surprise that an endless circle of dialogues comes when the two get together. Wang, aka Li’l Wang (said in the same delivery as rapper Li’l Wayne), particularly enjoys winding up Beals – by crying.

“I hate it because she fakes it,” Beals said. “Anything I say, she’ll just stop and tears will start forming.”

“I’m not actually crying, it’s just something I can do easily,” Wang laughed.

Beals’ frustration shows in a way that only Wang’s parents can probably relate to.

“I don’t feel bad at all. It makes me mad because she’ll do it at the most random times and I know she’s faking it,” Beals said. “Every single day.”

“Not every day,” Wang assured.

“Yes. Every single day,” Beals stubbornly confirmed.

The back-and-forth is impressive, and hardly surprising. Both are known for having sharp minds and bright academic futures.

“They’re both so brilliant,” Green said. “They can do anything down the road. They have such ambition for college, their studies and their futures. They do it without egos and everyone genuinely likes them, and that’s not easy, no matter where you go in life.”

That desire for an intellectual challenge helps them on the court, as well.

“It’s probably the mental aspect that we enjoy the most,” Beals said. “There’s so much you have to keep track of during the game – where to set up your hitters and where the weaknesses are in the other team’s defense.”

Wang, actually pronounced “wong” (Green felt silly when she found out how it was pronounced – over a year after Wang moved to Lake Travis – but laughed because no one ever corrected her), said they’ve also gotten used to the nicknames, and that Green makes up for it with her pre-game rituals and stories.

But given the chance to slip in a funny anecdote about their head coach, the girls can’t quite find a way to get her back.

“I’m sure there’s something, I just can’t think of it,” Beals said.

They’ll probably be talking about it later, but no one will get the joke. In life, and on the court, they just keep setting everyone up. The results are different, but the same. It doesn’t make sense, but then again, it does.

It’s an inside joke, you wouldn’t understand. But the good news is that their opponents don’t get it, either. They’re left puzzled and speechless after every Lake Travis win.

Both Beals and Wang are hoping they’ve got about four more teams that just won’t understand until it’s too late.

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William “Randy” Boggess’ feet have taken him along West Virginia railroad tracks, through North Carolina and Illinois forests, to the Aleutian Islands on Navy duty and into an NBC television studio for a family dance competition.

The 97-year-old Hudson Bend resident remembers all his adventures like they were yesterday, but he hasn’t stopped to take a load off.
His routine includes working out at a Lakeway gym, driving around town and sipping on a Dos Equis from time to time.
If a University of Arizona program hadn’t shut down, the retired university professor would still be poring over and reporting on water reserves on thousands of acres at a Native American reservation.
Boggess was born April 9, 1913 in Oakvale, W.Va., a town of 300 wedged between Norfolk & Western and Virginian Railway railroad tracks in the Appalachian Mountains.
“It was a pretty isolated area. There were no paved roads,” he said. “Everyone knew what you what you were doing all the time. There wasn’t much privacy.”
Boggess soaked up science and history as he attended a one-room schoolhouse and then a new high school as he worked in his father’s general store.
He would play cowboys and Indians and baseball with his cousins where they could find a somewhat level patch of grass or dirt.
On some Saturdays, Boggess would go to the county seat of Princeton for Saturday night cliffhanger serials.
Although he was a young boy in a small town, Boggess was keenly aware of global events.
Two of his older cousins fought in France during World War I.
“First thing I would ask my mother to look for [in the newspaper] was to see if they were on the casualty lists,” he said. “They were not in very good health after they got back [home] — one was wounded and the other was gassed.”
The Spanish flu struck the country in 1917-18 and claimed one of his aunts.
“It was one of the most disastrous diseases that ever hit this country,” he said. “Many, many families lost someone.”
When the Great Depression hit, many of the mountain farmers would pay for goods at his father’s store with livestock or go on credit, but the store survived primarily on customers who worked for the railroads, one of the few industries that didn’t lay off its employees.
“People talk about this being a depression. They don’t know what the Depression was or is. There just were not any jobs,” he said. “We don’t see people jumping out of windows on Wall Street, which they did back then.”
Upon graduating from high school, Boggess traveled on a new paved road in his 1931 Model-A to a state teacher’s college in Athens, W.Va., which is now Concord University.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that time. I had considered medicine, but the sight of blood made me ill,” he said.
Botany and zoology teachers inspired him to major in physics and chemistry, and he graduated in 1933.
He got a job teaching science at his former high school where his younger brother and four cousins were among his students, but that level of education didn’t suit him.
“It was a little hard on my system – I was kind of a bundle of nerves on the whole thing — and I realized that I needed to do something else,” he recalled.
The summer after his first frazzled year of teaching he took a Duke University field botany course in western North Carolina where he returned the next summer to identify plants.
“We roamed all over the country on foot,” he recalled.
Boggess was hooked and determined he would go to graduate school. However, he had his teaching obligations to fulfill.
“I took a leave from teaching, but I knew I would never come back,” he said.
He enrolled at Duke University in 1935 and got a teaching scholarship while he studied botany.
When the university became one of the few in the country to start a forestry program, Boggess left his doctorate work behind to explore a fledgling subject in 1937. The university was a newcomer to the field at the time but had acquired 4,700 acres of forestland to form the Duke Forest.
“I was very much interested in plant physiology so it was no problem for me to go over to forestry,” he said.
His studies also produced a meeting on the steps of Duke University Hospital with his future wife Effie Cowan, a dietitian from Alabama.
When she returned to her home state, Boggess thought he would never see her again, but a letter from Cowan said she would be coming back to work at the hospital.
“We picked up where we left off. It didn’t take long for me to realize that’s who I wanted to live with for the rest of my life,” he said. “Duke furnished me a wife, which I had for 67 years.”
They married on Boggess’ 25th birthday in 1938, the year he graduated, and moved to a cabin in the woods outside of Durham, N.C.
After working for the Duke Forest for six months on a temporary job, the couple moved south where he worked for the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, which later became Auburn University.
“My work there took me all over the state and I was away from home a lot,” he recalled.
He and Effie still found time to start a family and had their first son, Randy, in 1939. Their younger son, Sam, was born in 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbor.
At the height of World War II and with the first daughter, Mary, on the way, Boggess entered the U.S. Navy in 1943.
He went into the service as an ensign and trained at Naval Air Station Quonset Point in Rhode Island. As a 30-year-old with a higher rate, he and others like him earned the moniker of “Golden Boots” from lower rates and cringed at taking orders from others who had not had civilian jobs.
After receiving his first assignment to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland where he saw his first helicopter and jet plane, Boggess quickly became his own boss.
“I got my first look at the inefficiency of manpower. They didn’t need me in the job I was in. I made myself a job — chief janitor,” he said.
That lasted for a few months before Boggess began looking for more challenging assignments.
His forestry experience had exposed him to aerial photography, and that knowledge earned him a spot at the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Photo Intelligence Center school for six weeks in Anacostia, Wash., where the family moved.
Boggess worked on photos from such key points as Tarawa and Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during his training.
Boggess finished school and joined up with the Commodore Pack of the Advanced Intelligence Center before he his Aleutian Islands’ assignment to Attu Island, which was retaken from the Japanese in May 1943 in the only land battle on U.S. soil during World War II.
“[Going into the Navy] was tough. It wasn’t easy at all. I could never give my wife enough credit for being able to do what she did because she had the two boys and had Mary while I was in the Aleutian Islands,” he said, remembering that he didn’t find out about her birth for three weeks because a heavy storm blocked mail deliveries to the Navy base.
There, Boggess examined reconnaissance photos taken of Japan’s Kuril Islands where the majority of the empire’s air force was based. The Navy used the intelligence to plan bombing runs that deterred Japan from moving its air power farther south.
“We kept a big chunk of the Japanese air force occupied up there, even though we didn’t do a lot of damage,” he said. “The Japanese always felt that they would be invaded from the north.”
Their belief was nearly realized.
Promoted to lieutenant junior grade, Boggess said he participated in preparations for a planned invasion of Japan from the north on Hokkaido, in which Russia would provide ground forces and the U.S. would contribute air and naval support.
“That was the plan, but by the grace of God the war ended,” he said. “We would have been right in the thick of it.”
Weeks before the planned attack, Boggess’ unit was told to suspend operations with no explanation. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered Aug. 15.
Boggess believes the bombings saved millions of lives on both sides.
“It was them or us. If we had to invade Japan, both sides would have lost many more people. I hated the humane part of it, certainly, but when you are in a war, preservation of yourself comes first,” he said.
At the end of the war, he returned to his family in Alabama.
“It was so dadgum hot, I couldn’t stand to be outside,” Boggess said. “I’d get dizzy if I got outside. I had been acclimated to that cool weather [at Attu].”
When he reached the necessary number of points, he left the Navy and returned to work for the Alabama Polytechnic Institute.
“Quite frankly, I enjoyed Navy duty. If I had not had a family and a job, I would have stayed in,” he said.
One of the hardest decisions of his life came when he took a job in forestry research with the University of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station and relocated his family to Pope County, Ill.
“It was in the largest county, the poorest county and the least populated county in the state of Illinois,” he recalled.
He enjoyed his assignment and Effie gave birth to their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, there, but the rural area offered few options for their children’s social life.
“We were way in the country. We didn’t have a paved road when we got there. We didn’t have a telephone,” he said.
Effie, who was worried about the lack of social activities in the area, noticed an ad in the newspaper that got everyone on their feet, literally.
An Arthur Murray dance studio in Paducah, Ky., was advertising a special family dance lessons.
“I had never danced a lick in my life, but I thought it was worth a try,” Boggess said. “We took their introductory course and we were hooked. It became a big part of our lives.”
During their two years of lessons, the Boggesses qualified for the Arthur Murray Bronze Medal, the first family in the county to achieve that distinction.
Boggess and his daughters also signed up to dance in the Arthur Murray Party competition in 1955 that featured a parent and two children, which sent them on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to NBC’s TV studios in Manhattan, N.Y.
The whirlwind adventure included stops at Tavern on the Green and the Copacabana where they saw Sammy Davis Jr. and a radio interview.
“We had quite a nice time of that,” Boggess said. “It was out of this world. We had never done anything like that — on national TV? Oh man!” he said.
To add to the pressure, they rehearsed a dance to Perry Como’s “Papa Loves Mambo,” but issues over the song’s rights forced them to start from scratch with a samba.
The crowd’s Applause-O-Meter rated them second, but because the parent of the first-place team was a dance instructor, they were disqualified and the Boggesses claimed the title.
Paducah threw the TV celebrities a parade when they returned home. The Boggesses also won a year’s supply of Sweetheart Soap, which Elizabeth said emitted a powerful stench in their basement back in Illinois.
Effie and Randy and their children continued dancing into the 1960s.
“That was really a high point in my life. We did a lot of exhibitions for quite a few years,” Boggess said. “The thing that made us unique was that we were a whole family.”
In 1957, the University of Illinois started a forestry program and the family moved to Urbana, Ill., where Boggess served as chief forester for the new department.
“This was quite a decision for me to make because I was pretty happy down there with the work I was doing [on measuring tree growth overnight and throughout the day]. It was just beginning to yield a lot of results,” he admitted. “It was not an easy thing for me to do, but I realized it would be a break for the family.”
As their children grew up and moved on, the couple continued to dance in private clubs.
Boggess retired from the university in 1973 and moved to Austin for five years where he did some work for National Science Foundation and was president of the American Water Resources Association and edited their publications for 10 years.
The Boggesses then moved to Arizona where he became a professor of forestry at the University of Arizona. When he turned 70, he was forced to retire again, but he continued to do work for the school, such as writing final reports on the Tohono O’odham reservation’s groundwater resources in southeastern Arizona.
“The high degree of health problems — particularly diabetes and alcoholism — was very sad,” he said, noting that some wells contained high levels of arsenic.
Boggess bonded with the tribe, and the couple joined the tribe for several Thanksgivings. However, they were slightly disappointed that the meal was American food.
After the university shut down the groundwater program and Effie suffered two strokes, the Boggesses moved to Hudson Bend to live at their daughter Mary’s lake house in 1994 and then with Elizabeth and her husband.
“When she had the second one, I realized I couldn’t handle things by myself and I had to get to close to family,” Boggess said.
Effie passed away in 2004, but Boggess has continued to stay busy by working out at Divine Strength twice a week, running on a home treadmill and doing resistance training. He also reads mystery novels and works crossword puzzles.
“I have lived a life of relative moderation. I never smoked and I’ve never been an alcoholic. I have never done anything of excess,” he said.