Honoring a Marine

Mike James/The Independent

Lloyd March 31, 2009 11:50 pm

— Lt. Col. Vance Huston marshaled an entire community to build the Jr. ROTC building on the Greenup County High School campus.
That is why the community dedicated the structure to Huston on Tuesday.
Cadets in camouflage joined dignitaries, school officials and some of those who helped with the original construction in a morning ceremony honoring Huston, whose colorful career as a helicopter pilot took him into combat and onto presidential aircraft before he settled in Greenup County.
Huston, who was the JROTC instructor at GCHS from 1979 through 1988, molded a coalition of school and community volunteers to get the building constructed, said Master Sgt. Tom Fenchel, who is in charge of the program today.
The dedication was a first in the annals of the district. “It is unprecedented in Greenup County to honor a single person with the naming of a structure,” Fenchel said. Huston deserves the distinction because of his work on the building, he said. “The colonel built this building with his own hands.”
Huston, however, said others had stepped forward when he asked for help. Charlie Banks, the principal at the time, had given the OK on a piece of ground; a member of the Kentucky National Guard 201st Engineer Battalion who was an architect drew up plans for free; members of the 201st dredged creek gravel for foundation work. Other local volunteers put in lighting, plumbing, concrete and the like.
“The thing that is so incredible about this building,” Huston said, “is that it was a community project.”
“I’m swept off my feet,” he said after the ceremony. “What struck me was seeing the cadets at attention, the impact this program has on young people. That’s what it’s all about.”
After school board members Jeff Hurn and Kelly Adkins unveiled the dedication sign, Huston asked that a second plaque be installed commemorating his late colleague, Master Sgt. Ernie Gouge, his assistant instructor during his years at the high school. “He was (the cadets’) daddy, their brother, their uncle, their confidant. They loved him,” Huston said.
Huston came to Greenup after a 23-year career on active duty with the Marines. He flew 160 combat missions in Vietnam and then was among the elite group of pilots to fly Marine 1, the chopper assigned to the president of the United States.
He flew presidents Kennedy and Johnson and was at Love Field in Dallas the day Kennedy was shot.
Originally from California, Huston found Greenup when he and his wife were looking for a quieter place to settle down after he retired from the Marines.
A rural school like GCHS brings together a cross-section of children and the JROTC program brings them an opportunity to learn duty and responsibility, he said. “It can fill a need in their lives.”
Command Sgt. Major Paul Royster, one of several members of the 201st in attendance on Tuesday, was one of the soldiers who pitched in to dredge truckloads of gravel for the building. “Colonel Huston commanded respect,” Royster said. “He was an honorable guy. He exuded that.”
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.

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