While sitting at the awards banquet tonight, the closing event of the Upper Midwest Aviation Symposium, I glanced at the program. It contained a list of all the past inductees into the North Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame.

My eye stopped at the bottom of the list for 1997.

Jack Daniels.

I snickered to myself, thinking of the past few days of the first aviation event I’d ever been to, and the fact that the carpet was practically worn out wherever the hotel parked the portable bar.

I turned to Mark. “It looks like Jack Daniels has made it into the Aviation Hall of Fame here in North Dakota.”

He laughed.

Several humorous scenarios continued to cross my mind periodically throughout the evening, but I won’t share them with you.