From time to time, we provide originally-written articles. This is the archive of those articles.
2024
Two chapter members killed in Afton plane crash
EAA Chapter 54 members Pat Moore and Mitch Zahler were killed Saturday March 2 when Moore's Globe Swift went down in Afton, shortly after taking off from Lake Elmo Airport. Moore, 85, of White Bear Lake, and Zahler, 68, of Baytown Township, were enroute to the Fagen Fighters Aviation Museum in Granite Falls with a group of other aviators, according to an email from member Bill Schanks Jr., who had departed the airport just before the Swift.
Chapter House renovations completed
After about a month of work, this phase of the renovation of the Chapter 54 house has been completed. The effort involved repainting the walls and reimagining the space to make it more comfortable and welcoming. It's also to move us forward as a chapter, thinking about who we are and where we're going. The history of the chapter is certainly properly preserved and acknowledged -- possibly more so -- while allowing us to use the space to declare who we are now.The changes were guided by a visit to the space in 2022 by Robyn Stoller's sister, an interior designer. While we didn't comply with all of her recommendations, they guided the process.
A conversation with Marlon Gunderson
I'm from East Central Minnesota -- Rush City and Mora. I was the 8th of 11 children in a dairy farm family. My Dad almost went broke farming before I was born. He moved 5 kids to Thief River Falls and had a couple of crop failures. He bought a place in Rush City and took an hourly job to pay the contract off and grow the farm to where he could support his family again. My brothers and sister were the labor supply. We were given a lot of responsibility and the boys got pretty mechanically inclined.
The Wall of Planes
The wall full of pictures at the EAA 54 headquarters has been moved from the north to the west wall. Culled from the group, however, are planes from people who are no longer active members of the chapter. That amounts to the majority of the pictures that were hanging. We want to display only the planes built/owned by active members. We're looking for yours.