DESK OLE 618-Some Explanation Required

This year the President at Ohio Valley University will work from the desk of “Ole 618.”   That requires some explanation.

During the Stepping Stones Christmas Auction in December 2016, one of the items put up for bid was the naming rights for the President’s Desk. Other unusual items on the auction included these:

• Having a picture of the person of your choice hung in the Isom Educational Wing as the “Next President of Ohio Valley University”
• Three hours use of the President’s Conference Room
• Ten minutes of undistracted time with OVU Executive Vice President (and rocket scientist) Jeff Dimick

Wayne and Judy Hatcher of Vienna, WV, won the bid to name the President’s Desk for 2017.  Wayne named the desk “Ole 618.”  That also requires some explanation.

Judy’s father, First Lieutenant Kenneth Ray Lockie, piloted a B17 out of Snetterton-Heath, England, from October 1944 to April 1945.  He and his crew flew 35 combat missions, most of them aboard a B17 with a tail number 338618.  The crew generally shortened the number to “Ole 618.”

Other members of the crew included Ewing M. Johnson (co-pilot), Howard Forker (navigator), R.F. “Budd” Davidson (bombardier),  Gordon Strandberg (flight engineer), Warren Ryan (radio operator), John “Sully” Sullivan (ball turret gunner), Don Williams (armorer-waist gunner), A. Longmire (armorer-waist gunner), and  Edward Gaylord (tail gunner).

So during 2017 the OVU President works from a desk that honors First Lieutenant Lockie, and his crew, for the sacrifices they made for our nation.

I’m told that Ken and his wife, Irma, lived strong Christian lives and supported higher education.  Ken worked as a flight engineer for American Airlines for 30 years.  Ken passed in 1996 and Irma in 2008.

I am honored to work this year at “Ole 618” in more ways than one.  That requires some explanation.

My own father, Private Leroy Shank, served in the same war as First Lieutenant Lockie.  He worked building airfields for the US Army Air Corps in the South Pacific.  My father-in-law, First Lieutenant Wayne Tague, flew the A20 attack bomber, also in the South Pacific.  So “Ole 618” also strikes a chord deep within me.

This blog comes to you from the “Desk of Ole 618.”

That requires no explanation.