Colonel Charles Powell Named Distinguished Citizen of the Year

Retired Colonel Charles Powell holds office hours in the Wells Fargo Bank Building downtown where you can find him most weekday morning in his office, usually with a cup of coffee. Through his friendly demeanor, you’d never guess he was a combat military pilot. He flew many airplanes in his career during the glory days of the U.S. Air Force.

He has been a banker and community leader for over 30 years since retiring as the wing commander at Goodfellow Air Force base in 1984. Thursday night, the Southwest Council of the Boy Scouts of America, friends, and supporters gathered at Bentwood Country Club to honor Powell as the Texas Southwest Council Distinguished Citizen of the Year.

Powell’s career began when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1954 and earned a commission as a second lieutenant in the then-fledgling U.S. Air Force, which was then not even a decade old, having split from the U.S. Army in 1947. It was the height of the Cold War, and there was much to be accomplished during the timeframe that encompassed Powell’s 30-year military career.

He piloted KB-50Js out of England Air Force Base in Alexandria, Louisiana. Flying the KB-50, an aerial refueling platform, he spent many weeks and months deployed to places all around the world, including Europe and the Pacific theater. A KB-50 is a modified version of the four-propeller B-29. It refueled fighter aircraft mostly, and Powell flew missions in it towards Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

During the Cuban Crisis, fighter aircraft, particularly RF-101 aircraft, were used for low-level reconnaissance over the island. Wings of fighters were deployed along the Florida coast in case of all-out war with the Soviets in Cuba. An F-100 or F-101 couldn’t get over the target, Cuba, from the states without topping off their gas tanks behind a tanker like the KB-50. To fly fast enough to refuel the new Century fighters of that era, two J-47 jet engines were installed underneath each wing for extra thrust and speed.

Throughout his flying career, Powell was a transport pilot mostly, and his combat service in Vietnam was flying the HC-130. This variant of the C-130 airframe, still in use today, is used to rescue downed pilots and lead missions to spring American prisoners of war. Powell was responsible for leading efforts to save 14 from captivity—combat saves. Then, in November 1970, he was an in-theater planner and pilot in the raid on the Son Tay Prisoner of War (POW) Camp in North Vietnam.

The raid was brilliantly executed, but the 65 American POWs had been moved to another camp before the raiding party arrived. The commandos still managed to kill about 100 enemy combatants, including Communist Chinese and Russian advisors.

Details emerged from Son Tay of the inhumane conditions that American POWs were enduring during the Vietnam War and we later learned that the treatment of POWs improved at other prisons, like at the Hanoi Hilton in Saigon, because the raid exposed to the world how badly the Communists treated their prisoners.

Powell has a stack of medals for his heroism, including a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal with seven Oak Leaf Clusters—that’s eight Air Medals.

He also has two Legion of Merits.

After Vietnam, Powell served in a variety of staff assignments at Headquarters USAF. He taught at the Air Command and Staff College, a school that grooms majors to become colonels; these are the brightest new majors who will eventually lead squadrons and then wings. Some become generals. From 1978-1980, he was the Chief of Staff, Air University, at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

In 1980, Powell was assigned to be the Commander, 2480^th Technical Training Wing at Goodfellow Air Force Base for four years. After retiring in 1984, he never left San Angelo.

Powell’s civilian career was in banking and today he is chairman of the Community Bank Board for Wells Fargo Bank in San Angelo. He has been a community leader of many non-profit and community organizations throughout his civilian career. Congressman Mike Conaway illustrated Thursday night that the list is longer than his arm.

For example, in 2000 Powell was appointed to the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee, where he helped increase grants here by 44 percent, Conaway wrote into the Congressional Record. As a member of the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce, Colonel Powell was a great advocate for local transportation issues, including to the state government, and helped secure funding for the U.S. 67 Houston Harte Expressway through San Angelo. In 2005, Powell was awarded the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Road Hand Award for his dedication to improving public transportation safety.

He continues to serve the community today, most recently as a leader in the P4 initiative with Goodfellow Air Force Base. This is the military-civilian partnership between Goodfellow and the City of San Angelo, Tom Green County, and the San Angelo ISD to streamline the use of public resources like training and training facilities in the area to save tax dollars.

“In all of my talks about Colonel Powell’s career—his military career… whatever he did—there was a pillar right by his side the entire time, and that is his wife JoAnne Powell. She has been Charlie’s helpmate, [standing] shoulder-to-shoulder through all of that, the military career, raising those kids, and all of those moves all over the world while he served our nation. She served nation as well doing that. This award is for you as much as Charlie because he wouldn’t be able to do all of that without your support,” Conaway said, addressing JoAnne.

JoAnne runs Congressman Conaway’s busy office in San Angelo.

Councilwoman Charlotte Farmer presented a proclamation from the City of San Angelo declaring May 7 as “Charlie Powell Day”.

Col. Kimberly Joos, Commander of the 17^th Training Wing at Goodfellow AFB, declared May 7 as “Colonel Powell Day” at the base. Daniel Walker presented the proclamation to Powell.

After the main event, when the Boy Scouts’ Council President Michael Jenike presented Powell with the Distinguished Citizen Award, Powell was asked to speak. Reluctantly, he faced the room of about 300 crowded into the Bentwood Country Club banquet room.

“Thank you. When you are as honored as I am to live with so many wonderful, good friends and people…When you spend your 84^th birthday, as this day has evolved for me to be so warm and wonderful, that I have decided to try for another 84 [years].”

“Let me thank the Scouts and all of the people who worked to make this a wonderful, wonderful event for me and my family… Friends, friends, friends. What a fortunate man I have been for these 84 years.”

Peering into the future, Powell said, “What I want to leave here is this city and this community as truly [being] an outstanding community, with fellowship and brothership of the people.”

Powell thanked the audience and San Angelo for welcoming himself and his family when he retired from the military to start his civilian career in ‘84. “You need to congratulate yourselves and your neighbor, and look them in the eye, and thank them for making this place special. A special place of ethics, honor, cooperation, friendship, and good people, and Christianity. Thank you very much,” Powell concluded.

Previous recipients of the Distinguished Citizen Award include Governor Dolph Briscoe, Robert Junell, Congressman Mike Conaway, General Gerald Prather, and O.C. Fisher.

Top sponsors of the event, the Eagle Sponsors, included Liz and Devin Bates; Randy and Susan Brooks; Danny Knox; Mr. and Mrs. Bob Malone; Freeman Pickett III; Jimmy Powell; and Pollyanna and Steve Stephens.

Pianist Terry Mikeska performed throughout the evening.