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Cobb County Welcomes Obama

PHOTO GALLERY

Barack Obama was at McEachern High School in Powder Springs, GA on jJuly 8 holding a town hall meeting on the economy.    It was Barack's first visit to the peach state since he became the Democratic party nominee more than a month ago.  He used the appearance to speak out on his ideas to help bolster the economy, because it has emerged as a top issue for voters.

Tuskegee Airman Colonel Charles Dryden dies at 87

LT. COLONEL CHARLES W. DRYDEN (USAF-Retired) passed away on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 after a brief illness.

Charles Walter Dryden was born on September 16, 1920, in New York City to Jamaican parents, Charles Levy Tucker Dryden and Violet Buckley Dryden. He lived out his dream of flying airplanes. And then he lived to write about it in his autobiography which was published by the University of Alabama Press "A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman."

In August 1941 Dryden was selected for Aviation Cadet training at the Tuskegee Army Flying School. He was commissioned in 1942 as Second Lieutenant, in the second class of black pilots to graduate in the history of the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was a member of the famed 99th Pursuit Squadron, later the 332 Fighter Group, which served during World War II. On June 9, 1943, then Lieutenant Charles Dryden, in his P-40 nicknamed "A-Train," led a flight of six pilots engaging enemy fighter aircraft in aerial combat over Pantelleria, Sicily. It was the first time in aviation history that Black American pilots of the U.S. Army Air Corps engaged aircraft in combat. Col. Dryden's 21-year military career included combat missions in Korea and duty assignments in Japan, Germany and other bases in the United States.

Colonel Dryden was a Professor of Air Science at Howard University and retired as a command pilot with 4,000 hours flying time. He is a member of the board of directors of the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame, Quality Living Services, and the Atlanta Chapter-Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. which he helped found in 1978 and served as president, vice president, and national convention committee chairman. Lt. Col. Dryden was designated an "Outstanding Georgia Citizen" by the Secretary of State and inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame. President Bush conferred the Congressional Gold Medal on Lt. Col. Dryden, and all Tuskegee Airmen, in the Capitol Rotunda in March, 2007. He was a member of the First Congregational Church; and was often a speaker to youth and college students encouraging them to seek careers in military and civilian aviation.