When the veterans aboard the May 7 edition of the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight stepped off the plane that night to a boisterous welcome home ceremony at Fort Dodge Regional Airport, more than just their daylong voyage came to an end.

Many in the cheering, clapping crowd probably did not realize that night that the flight was the last one coordinated by the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight Committee that started the trips to Washington, D.C., 15 years earlier.

That committee was an all-volunteer group that organized 27 flights to take veterans to the nation’s capital to see the war memorials.

For them it was a labor of love that involved thousands of hours of fundraising, planning, working flight schedules, ordering caps and shirts for the veterans and doing all kinds of other tasks essential to making each flight a success.

They can now proudly take a break from all of that, knowing that they accomplished their mission in an outstanding manner.

The committee consists of Ron Newsum, president; Craig Malloy, vice president, Mel Schroeder, treasurer; Marlene Welander; secretary; Charlie Walker, legal counsel; plus Russ Naden, Mary Lou Walker, Barb Schulze, Orene Cressler, Lee Bailey, Julie Reed, Peg Dettman, and Darron Baker.

It was Newsum who got the effort started. He wanted to get his father, the late Clem Hentges, a Navy veteran of World War II, to Washington to see the war memorials. The Honor Flight program was underway in other parts of the country, so he decided to try to start one in Fort Dodge.

He assembled a team to get started. Schroeder, the Walkers and Naden were some of the initial members.

Their goal was to get enough veterans and enough money to have one flight.

Getting the money seemed like a daunting task. The Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight never had a deep-pocketed sponsor bankrolling it. All the money came from donations and fundraisers. The veterans always traveled for free.

Just chartering the jet for that first flight cost $72,000.

But the fundraising succeeded that year and every year since.

As the years went by, the committee refined its processes, making each Honor Flight a well-oiled machine. Many veterans have commented on how well the flights were conducted.

The flights went like clockwork. There were usually two flights a year, except for the pandemic year of 2020 when there were none. The Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight program was arguably the most consistent one in Iowa and perhaps the Midwest.

That is a tribute to the dedication of a small group of people who spent countless hours of their personal time to honor veterans, most of whom they did not know.

The members of the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight Committee rank as outstanding citizens and patriots, We salute them.