Aviation Museum Officially Gets Off The Ground

By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer
Two vintage Air Force fighter planes whirred across the sky Saturday morning, shaking the ground where hundreds of spectators celebrated the grand opening of the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum in its roomier spot at the Tyler Pounds Regional Airport.
"Oh, I remember this sound," said Red Lay, of Tyler, a Navy veteran of World War II. "When we were in Iwo Jima, the B29s would darken the sky, there were so many. They were on their way to Japan."
Chartered in 1985 and opened in 2002, the museum inhabited an old hangar that soon filled to the brim with memorabilia, said museum docent Marjorie Mustard.
HAMM moved into the closed north terminal, adding 9,000 square feet for its exhibits. Parts of the museum were open to visitors in July 2007, but now the museum is complete, she said.
"We wanted to get all the kinks out," she said, "and thank East Texas for all its support up to this point. So it's a free exhibit day."
Organizers estimated 2,000 people milled through the museum grounds on Saturday and admired 20 resident and visiting vintage war and commercial planes parked outside, some built in the 1940s.
(photo by Scott Lieberman/Tyler Morning Telegraph/AP)

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