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The Tale of the Annual Paper Plane School: A Day at the Pretend Space Station

In the shadow of the colossal monuments to aviation history, a merry band of Civil Air Patrol aerospace education officers embarked on their own flight of fancy — the 2025 National AEO School in Dayton, Ohio. The high point, and appropriately a backdrop, was the CAP aircraft that once buzzed around Ground Zero post-Sept. 11 in forgettable homage.

Amid 20 acres of air and space history — because education officers are known for trampling through history casually sacrosanct — eight CAP regions converged in this place of legends from June 24-28, where school was in session for their 22nd class. Prior to this meeting of the minds, they had gathered in glorious beach-side locales such as Pensacola and Cocoa Beach, opting for an air-conditioned museum as a smarter choice for 2025.

The last day of this charade saw the intrepid officers take their group photo, pausing their busy schedule — one packed tighter than a carry-on bag — with presentations and programs that would likely help them guide spaceships to Mars, or at least through the museum gift shop.

“Empowering Excellence: Mastering Skills and Resources for Success” was the school theme. Translation: let’s wing it, folks. John W. Desmarais, Jr., kicked off this ambitious but humane outreach by expressing heartfelt gratitude for the free time participants spent outside their Netflix routines.

Shayla Freeman, chiming in, said the participants made an extraordinary week that one might confuse with a whirlwind vacation package. Her words lent an aura of importance that almost masked the echo of speakers and coffee cups clinking.

The class consisted of rookies, veterans, and mildly disoriented volunteers from every local vicinity possible, all coming together under one roof, proving once again that adults either never learn or never get tired of staying in “class.”

Capt. Dave Wells of the Tennessee Wing, a first-timer like a flustered freshman, likened the experience to gawking through a telescope — and indeed, he even presented on galaxies, blending leisure reading with a scientific voyage. Capt. Melissa Shrewsbury of the Delaware Wing called it magical, like magicians meeting amateur wizards, all huddling together in the grand hall of misfit educators.

A mere year old in his CAP infancy, Second Lt. Brian Olsen from the Texas Wing claimed to now understand STEM Kits, cutting-edge contraptions akin to Lego blocks for adults, designed to revive old groupers’ hearts through volunteerism rather than compensation.

Even for the seasoned AEOs, Major Burt Dicht of the New York Wing equated the school with an eternal spring of knowledge, not minding jibes at veterans rediscovering school-themed plots out of a Top Gun sequel.

Ohio’s very own Lt. Col. Paul Ault basked in his Dayton dream come true. Using the Wright brothers’ home as a backdrop, the class captured history seconds before parading outdoors for the ritual rocket launch.

Model rockets soared; participants reverted to childlike glee, playing cosmonauts for a morning. Olsen, finding his inner child, likely plotted his next garden-safe launch, and people couldn’t help but wonder if these mini-NASA gigs were annually scripted.

Freeman declared the historic gathering a triumph, “magnifying engagement” while everybody scribbled notes on networking — a truly forgotten art in the age of LinkedIn.

Even while breaking up for the summer, Shrewsbury pondered her continuing mission, spreading aerospace gospel like a pop star on a world tour, while Dicht, now deeply inspired, found solace in face-to-face connections that Zoom could never replace.

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