EAA AirVenture Oshkosh volunteers share what keeps them coming back year after year: ‘It’s the people’

OSHKOSH – Everyone comes for the planes.

Many want to meet pilots.

Now, the drone show is becoming a huge draw.

Heck, Miss America was on the schedule for two days.

But the one thing aviation enthusiasts probably don’t go to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh to see is probably the best feature of the fly-in convention.

You wouldn’t know it without asking, but most of the 6,000 volunteers at AirVenture have a background in aviation with better stories to tell than some of the featured presentations.

So, while 80-year-old Illinois native Hal Aavang has been shuttling media members across Wittman Field for the last week, he’s spent the previous 56 years with a private pilot’s license — and a love for AirVenture.

He’s been coming to the convention since 1966, after growing up with his dad flying B-29s during World War II.

“I just love aviation from the time I was old enough to know what an airplane is,” he said.

Aavang is far from the oldest volunteer at AirVenture, and he certainly doesn’t travel the farthest considering someone like Will Sladaritz, 87, has made the trip up from Burke, Texas, for three decades running.

“Oshkosh is the place to be the last week of July. Everyone knows that,” said Sladaritz of the reason he returns to AirVenture.

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For the last eight of those 30 years, Sladaritz has volunteered at the convention because “it’s more fun when you’re here for something more than yourself.”

And it’s not just him.

Whether they’re private pilots, Army veterans or former airplane mechanics, these aviation buffs all seemingly give of their time for the same reason.

“It’s the people,” explained Nancy Carter, who has both a pilot’s and mechanic’s license.

“I feel like I’m coming home every time I come here.”

She may reside in Superior, but the 68-year-old Carter truly feels like AirVenture is where she belongs after first coming to the fly-in convention in 1990.

80-year-old Air Force veteran Pat Ryan has been coming to AirVenture for the last 40 years because of the people.

80-year-old Air Force veteran Pat Ryan feels the same way, but that’s understandable considering he’s been going to the same place for 40 years.

“The bus keeps bringing me back,” Ryan laughed.

Ryan can still vividly recall his first AirVenture, and yet his most notable memories are some of the most recent ones.

Just last year, the Air Force veteran was lining up for the Veterans Parade when he noticed a guy in the second jeep ahead of him was a major-general.

“I never did see his face because I couldn’t take my eyes off the medal of honor he was wearing,” Ryan remembered.

But he thought to himself that if a two-star general was in the second jeep, then who could have been in the first jeep?

Turns out it was America’s oldest living triple ace from World War II, Bud Anderson, who was 102 at the time.

“I told him congratulations on your 16 kills, and he replied, '16 and a half,' and I burst out laughing,” smiled Ryan.

Anderson has since died, but Ryan’s memory of him surely hasn’t.

Memories tend to have a way of living on at AirVenture, especially considering so many families have volunteered across multiple generations.

The Albers family is in its third generation of volunteering at the Seaplane Base.

The Albers are one such family, having reached a third generation of assisting at the Seaplane Base.

Dan Albers, 67, first started volunteering almost 50 years ago when his father-in-law, Lon Nanke, an air traffic controller at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee, introduced him to “this little hidden gem.”

Now the legacy continues through Albers’ 38-year-old son Shane — who is about to get his pilot’s license after first volunteering at 12.

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And while Nanke passed away a few years ago, his memory not only lives on through Dan and Shane, but via his picture and a voice recording embedded in an oak tree at the base.

“There are some families that are in their fourth generation of volunteering, so it has become a family tradition for a lot of people,” said EAA’s director of communications, Dick Knapinski.

Not every volunteer has a rich family legacy in AirVenture, though.

Some don’t have a background in aviation nor travel long distances to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

But that doesn’t make their stories any less compelling.

Connie Hay, Judy Pechman, Janet Schneider, Judy Lloyd and Julie Brady are five friends from Oshkosh who help out at AirVenture as one of the many events they volunteer at across the city.

And those exploits have led to them partying with Harrison Ford — a former chairman of EAA’s Young Eagles — and rubbing shoulders with fellow aviation enthusiast John Travolta.

Yet, those aren’t the memories that stick with them from AirVenture.

“We met some people from New Hampshire who became great friends and they come every year and we go visit them every year,” said Hay.

“It’s the people. That’s why we come back.”

AirVenture runs through July 28.

The 71st EAA AirVenture Oshkosh runs daily through July 28 at Wittman Regional Airport, 525 W. 20th Ave., Oshkosh. Daily tickets are $45 for adult members and $63 for adult non-members. Veterans and active military members pay $45 while kids 18 years and younger are admitted free. For more information, go to https://www.eaa.org/airventure .

Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: EAA AirVenture Oshkosh volunteers share what keeps them coming back year after year: ‘It’s the people’