Local guy makes good
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) has been in the news a lot lately, and for good reason as it's providing tremendous support for the Southeast Asian tsunami relief efforts.
But what you may not know is that the commanding officer of this carrier is a west Texas native, from my hometown of Fort Stockton, as a matter of fact. Captain Kendall L. Card was a freshman at Fort Stockton High School the year I and MLB were seniors. He's had quite a distinguished career as a pilot and sailor, and it's fascinating to contemplate how a boy who grew up 500 miles from the nearest beach could end up commanding a nuclear-powered ship with a crew of 5,000 people (and its own zip code!).
Update: Here's an article from the Fort Stockton Pioneer with more information about Card and his current assignment.
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Eric, 'hometown boy makes good' stories are a plus in any medium.
I first met the Card family when we moved to Fort Stocton, where I was managing editor of The Pioneer. Of course, Kendall was well on his way in the Navy by then.
I did get to meet him second-hand, though, near the end of the first year of the war in Iraq. By then, I was web editor of mywesttexas.com, and we were running an irregular series of 'day-in-the-life' reports (blogs?) from a young Midland man who was a seaman aboard the Lincoln.
We later did a feature about Card, himself, when President Bush touched down on the deck of the Lincoln as it was returning home, met the sailors, and gave a speech declaring an end to the hostilities in Iraq.
By the way, if you watched the television broadcast of that speech, you could catch a quick glimpse of Captain Card during the cutaways that showed the audience's enthusiastic response to the president's speech.
Posted by: Jeff at January 13, 2005 08:39 AM