CONGRATULATIONS!
 NAS Whidbey #1 Navy Installation
Not only is Naval Air Station Whidbey Island
the best Navy base in the world
— it’s one of the top U.S. military bases too.

AND

Oak Harbor Area Council was selected for Outstanding Council for 2016.  This is the highest award a council can receive.   Congratulations!!!!  This is fantastic.

There are roughly 260 councils, and we were one of ten councils selected as Outstanding.  Bremerton was the other PNW chapter selected as Outstanding.  Ten others (including Seattle) were selected as Meritorious Council.  Five others were selected as Honorable Mention (including Tacoma).

Many councils hang their hats upon the effort to achieve this even once. -- Listing it for many years on the social media. We have now received this distinction five years in a row.  During four of the five years prior to that, we received Meritorious Council.  Each is unique and each represents an outstanding effort.

Collectively, this sustained recognition represents a council that is superlative in all respects and a council which is superlative at supporting our Navy.

Congratulations!

Steve Bristow, President, Oak Harbor Area Council

Wednesday 26 July 2017
On this date in . . . 
1955 Ted Allen throws a record 72 consecutive horseshoe ringers

AND IN MILITARY HISTORY
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com

1942 – About 400 miles southeast of Fiji, the American aircraft carriers Wasp, Enterprise and Saratoga rendezvous with the invasion force for Guadalcanal. It is the most powerful force the US Navy has yet assembled in the Pacific.
1942 – CAPT Joy Bright Hancock appointed Director, Women’s Naval Reserve.
1942 – Actor Gene Autry is sworn into the Army Air Corps on the air, during his regular radio show, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. He served as an officer until 1945, when he resumed his show. Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, in 1907, the son of a livestock and horse trader who was also a Baptist minister. The family later moved to Oklahoma. In high school, Autry worked as a railway telegrapher at the local railroad depot, where he spent slow moments strumming his $8 guitar and singing. Passing through the depot one day, a stranger-who turned out to be Will Rogers-suggested that Autry try singing on the radio. Inspired, Autry traveled to New York City to look for a singing job but had no luck. Back home, he began working for a local radio station and found success as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.” Eventually, Autry and railroad dispatcher Jim Long wrote several country songs, including the world’s first gold record, “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine.” Autry became a regular on National Barn Dance, the forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry. In 1934, producer Nat Levine was looking for an actor who could sing and ride a horse. Autry wasn’t an actor but had already established a loyal radio audience, so Levine put him in numerous B-grade westerns. Playing the lead role in a long-running series of Saturday matinee films, Autry became America’s favorite singing cowboy. In 1940, his musical-variety radio show, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, debuted; it ran until 1956. He became America’s favorite TV cowboy in 1950 when he debuted The Gene Autry Show, which ran through 1956. In each episode, he and his sidekick, Pat Buttram, rode from town to town, maintaining law and order. From “Back in the Saddle Again” to yuletide mainstays such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” Autry’s music became part of American life. He was also an entrepreneur, owning hotels, gas stations, and the California Angels baseball team, among other ventures. He also owned a television production company and was proud of discovering “Annie Oakley” star Gail Davis, whom he featured in dozens of his movies and television program episodes and who had performed in his traveling rodeo. Her appearances spun off into her own series, which Autry’s company produced. Autry was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969. Autry died in 1998.

MISSION

The Navy League has three missions: to enhance the morale of active-duty personnel and their families, to inform Congress and the American public on the importance of strong sea services, and to support youth through programs that expose young people to the values of our sea services.