We were honoured to have an amazing speaker... the epitome of Service Above Self: Rocky Gannon

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, while he was a junior at Ocean City High School in New Jersey, Rocky enlisted in the Army Air Force at the age of seventeen. He immediately entered pilot training. Soon after his high school class graduated, Rocky graduated from Pilot Training and became a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot. At age twenty he was flying the B-29 Super Fortress.

For the next 37 years, he flew six thousand hours in thirty-four different aircraft, from bombers to transports, from gliders to fighters. He has fifty military awards and decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, ten Air Medals, four Meritorious Service medals and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm. He was a combat pilot in World War II, Korea, the Belgian Congo and 387 combat missions in Vietnam. After World War II, he served three years in the occupation of Iwo Jima and Japan. Fifteen of his thirty-seven years of duty were served overseas. In 1975 he became the U.S. Air Force’s first Master Air Traffic Controller.

After his retirement from the Air Force in 1980, he became an International Aviation Consultant. Later he became the Executive Director of the Florence Regional Airport in Florence, SC, retiring in 1993.

He is active in the community, serving on nine boards and commissions. He is an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver Award. In 2009, he received Scouting’s highest honor, the "Distinguished Eagle Award”. In 2001 he was named the South Carolina “Aviator of the Year” and inducted into the South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame.

He has been married to the former Roberta Gause for 60 years. They have three grown children, ten grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

 

 

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Rocky shared photographs and stories about the conclusion of WW2 in the Pacific, his growing up in Ocean City during the depression, learning to fly before he drove a car, and the kindness shared of local OC businessmen and Rotarians as a young man....

"Together we served...." Some of our Veterans: Standing (l to r): PDG Ken Thorpe, Ron "Silverfox" Grunstra, Bob Garrett, President Todd Bower, Dennis Johnson, Tom Shaiko, Dr. Carl Scheetz, Uncle Larry Deming; Kneeling: Bruce Engle; Our Guest of Honour - Seated: Rocky Gannon

THANK YOU to all who served and especially to Rocky for sharing these wonderful stories and for your many years of service!!!