NAR 60 Year Reunion, Part 12 - Vern Estes Takes The Stage....

The second speaker of the evening was Mr. Estes, who gave a nice talk on the early NARAMS and his history with them.

Amazingly, Vern has been to 58 of the 60 NARAMS!

During his speech, Vern stated that he wasn't sure if the first National Championship meet held in 1958 was actually called  NARAM-1.  He has never seen any documentation that specified that.

At that time, Bill Stine got up and approached the podium and handed Vern a piece of paper. We never heard what was in that document, but it might have held the answer. Perhaps we will find out at a later date.

On the humorous side, Vern was describing the early use of the standard NAR lead payload weight.

"That was before these were invented."  he said, holding up an egg!

At the end of his speech, Vern stated that he and Gleda were finding it increasingly difficult to travel across the country to attend model rocketry events.  He told the assembly that NARAM 60 will likely be the last one at which they would be present.

I can only speak for myself, but I am pretty sure that there was many a moist eye in the meeting hall following that announcement.

When he was finished with his talk, Vern left the podium to the accompaniment of an extended ovation from the attendees.....