Happy Holidays to members of the Longhorn Chapter! If you missed it, we had a very enjoyable and successful Holiday reception at the Petroleum Club in Fort Worth on 4 December. Members of 2-149 General Support Aviation Battalion, Texas National Guard and members from local Reserve Officer Training Courses joined us to celebrate and share in good cheer. Lieutenant Colonel Beckler, the Battalion Commander addressed the group on the unit’s future deployment in April 2013 then introduced Captain Hanna, Bravo Company, 1-149th to further articulate the upcoming events of their deploying unit. We all look forward to supporting this unit and their Family Readiness Group back in the Dallas Fort Worth area while they serve overseas. We also recognized and celebrated the contributions made by CW5 (Ret) Vance Barton in the awarding of the Order of Saint Michael, Bronze Award to him. In all we had 74 attend the event. Most had their picture taken in front of the Longhorn in the adjacent room and there was an Elvis citing that was caught on camera. Again, my thanks to allfor the great support of this event.

As we look into 2013, we are working diligently with AUSA North Texas Chapter to schedule and conduct a professional meeting with LTC Beckler speaking on accomplishments of the 2-149th in 2012 and preparations for deployment in 2013. We are targeting February for this event. It would count as our first quarter’s professional meeting. More to follow in the not too distant future on this event.Finally, we continue to prepare for the 2013 AAAA Annual Symposium to be held at Fort Worth from 9-13 April. As host chapter, we have the task of running the golf tournament and the All Chapter’s Reception. The Golf Tournament will be held at Sky Creek Ranch Golf Course, Keller, Texas on 9 April. The All Chapter’s reception will also be a birthday party for the Aviation Branch. We will celebrate our 30 year anniversary as a branch on 12 April during the All Chapter’s event. Folks, there are lots of opportunities to excel during the Symposium. If you would like to offer your help, please contact Larry Ginder at larry.ginder@dyn-intl.com. I look forward to seeing you at the 2013 symposium. I look forward to seeing you at our next event!

Sincerely,

Mike Miller
President
North Texas Chapter
Army Aviation Association of America

Pictured are the winners of the Spring 2012 golf tournament Matt Neyra, Chris Bettinger, Nick McGarrey, and Clare McGarrey.