Air Force Academy

The US Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs is one of five US service academies. Admission requires nomination by a Congressional Representative in addition to meeting rigorous academic standards.

As a teenager, Mark Gravengood had dreamed of attending the Air Force Academy and flying fighters, but his need for glasses ruled that out. After saving an old flight jacket and flights in Mark and Jackie's old Cessna 140, Bree Gravengood picked up Mark's old dream, polished it off and made it her own before she was in high school.^RFW6

Bree's hard work to put an impressive application in front of Congressman Elmer Lawton to receive his nomination to the Academy is the major thread of Reaching for Wings.

Alumni in the Spearfish Lake universe

• Colonel, later General, E.J. Seasprunk ^{RFW15 RFW42}
• retired General Harry Bankston ^RFW34
• retired Colonel George Flusser ^RFW34
• retired General Mike Hanneman ^MC18

Real World

The Air Force Academy has two websites: educational and military.