Four military T-6 World War II era aircraft will fly over the dedication ceremony for the Oklahoma Military Academy Killed in Action Memorial on Saturday, June 4, at Rogers State University.
The dedication ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. at the site of the new memorial near the main entrance of the RSU campus in Claremore. The ceremony will be held during the military academy’s annual reunion and is free and open to the public.
The memorial is a black granite pyramid etched with the names of 100 OMA cadets who died in service during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The former military planes will be flown by the Tulsa War Bird formation team, including Paul Mackey, Steve Campbell, Jim Griffin and John Esposito of Tulsa.
The formation fly-over will feature one of the aircrafts pulling up and out of the group as they pass over the dedication ceremony site in the tradition of the “missing man,” said Charles Harris, spokesman. The “missing man” is one who is considered to have ‘gone west’ in aeronautical terms and is in memory of the deceased former students and graduates of the OMA, he said.
The Oklahoma Military Academy operated at the present location of RSU from 1919 until it closed in 1971. Today, RSU is a regional public university, serving more than 4,400 students from its main campus in Claremore, and branch campuses in Bartlesville and Pryor, Okla.
For more information about the fly over, dedication ceremony and military academy reunion, visit www.rsu.edu.