VAL-4 “Black Pony” Reunion News

The Black Ponies held their fourth reunion in Fort Worth, TX in April 2002.
About 50 "Ponies" showed up, many with their significant others. Here you
can see Jack Skwara and Steve Salisbury chatting over old photos.

There was a social "hour" Friday evening at the hotel, many friendships
and memories were cussed and discussed in either the hospitality suite or
the banquet room. The OBA folks set up a place to sell T-shirts, cups and
other items. The Teem Events folks handled both room and reunion check-in.

The Clarion Hotel is located in Fort Worth’s “Sundance District”. And
the annual Art Festival provided plenty for people to do. On Saturday.
Tim Sikorski made arangements to take everybody to the local air museum
where the Bronco mock-up is located along with the OBA's museum.

Saturday afternoon most of us got together to pose in front of the

Bronco Buster statue at the nearby Barnes & Noble Bookstore.

I ran a couple of the pictures that one of the wive's took, (Thank You
whoever you are) through some photo merging software I have and I think
that the results came out pretty good.

Click Here For the full sized picture.

Saturday night's Banquet was another great chance for getting together,
a good time was had by all and Melvin Biggs' tribute to our fallen
squadron mates was inspiring. I have turned what he said into the 'In
Memory' page, click on that link from the main page to read it.

Our Closing Ceremony on Sunday morning was conducted over breakfast
and afterwards we started to break up and head for home. A special
thanks to Tim Sikorski and his team for putting this event together.
Hopefully we can all get together again in November 2004 at Pensacola.
Start encouraging any of this years 'No Shows' that you can to make the
next reunion a priority.

Sorry it took awhile to get this up, but life has been a little
busy lately. If anyone has any more reunion photos to add, send them
my way.

Looks like the next reunion will be October 15 & 16, 2004 at the
Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pensacola, FL. Please start making your plans now
to be there. Drop me an email if you are planning to make it or not and
if you have any ideas for it. Winds & Seas for now. Bob