Bill Bownas:

I was born at my grandfather's house on July 4, 1942 in Farmington, MI, while my father was in the U.S. Navy and at sea in the Pacific during WW II. As a member of a navy family, the first 10 years of my life was spent in California, Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, back to California and then finally to Norfolk, VA. My parents bought their first home in the Lynnhaven area of Princess Anne County in 1952 and that is where they spent the rest of their lives. I entered the 4th grade at Bayside Elementary School in 1952 and then the 5th grade at Oceana Elementary School when my parents moved to Princess Anne County. After completing the 7th grade at Oceana in 1955, all students were sent to the new Princess Anne High School for grades 8-12 instead of the old Oceana High School.

After graduating from Princess Anne High School, I attended Virginia Tech (VPI) and graduated with a B.S. in Forest Management. Upon graduation, I was offered a job with the Forest Service, but I had to turn it down because the Draft Board wanted me, too. I was faced with the decision of either being drafted into the army or voluntarily joining one of the services. I qualified for both the Air Force and Navy flight programs and ended up in the Navy.  About eighteen months later I had earned my wings and was designated a naval aviator. My squadron, VAW-12, was based at the Norfolk Naval Air Station and the aircraft carriers we deployed on were home ported in Norfolk as well.  I flew off of the following aircraft carriers: USS Lexington; USS Wasp; USS Randolph; USS Essex; USS Yorktown; and the USS Intrepid. Besides flying aircraft, my squadron collateral duties were maintenance test pilot, instrument check pilot, NATOPS standardization check pilot, communications officer, legal officer, personnel officer, and finally administrative officer (department head). Our deployments took us all over the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean Sea and from the North Atlantic Ocean, north of the Arctic Circle, to the South Atlantic and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While on these deployments I was able to see the sights in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, England, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, St. Thomas, Barbados, and Cuba.  

Upon leaving the Navy, I was hired by Delta Air Lines as a pilot. At various times I was based in Atlanta, GA, Houston, TX, Chicago, IL, and Cincinnati, OH. I flew into and out of most major cities in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean Islands. As a Captain, I was selected to become a Line Check Airman (instructor) and served in that capacity for several years. As a line check airman, it was my responsibility to train and qualify new captains, copilots, and flight engineers on the aircraft after they completed ground school and, also, to give annual line check evaluations to captains and their crews while they were flying scheduled trips. After 32 years of service with Delta, I retired in 2002 at the mandatory retirement age of 60. I thoroughly  enjoyed my flying career and miss it very much.

I met Marybelle Emick while I was a student at Virginia Tech and she was a student at Radford College. We were married in August, 1966 after she graduated with a B.S. in Elementary Education and we are still together after 44 years of marriage. We have two sons and a daughter, of whom I am most proud. My eldest son, Jon, graduated from the University of Tennessee with a B.S. in Architecture, was a Navy pilot for 7 years, and is now a pilot with Jet Blue airlines. My daughter, Jennifer, is an information science researcher for Oak Ridge Laboratories and graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Biochemistry (Magna Cum Laude) and a Masters Degree in Information Science at the University of Tenn. While working on her Masters at UT she worked part time at Oak Ridge Labs and wrote the website for the human genome. My son, Benjamin is the youngest and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a B.S. in Political Science. While there he was an All American on the navy power lifting team and was selected for pilot flight training after graduation. He flew P-3's out of Hawaii, was a naval flight instructor for three years at Corpus Christi, TX, and is now flying the Navy's version of the DC-9 airliner out of NAS Oceana. I think he will make the navy his career and become a "Lifer". I have been blessed with three wonderful little granddaughters and I am still hopeful for a few grandsons before it is all over.

In retirement, we enjoy traveling and spending time at our time-share unit on Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, HI. I enjoy bicycling, working out, fishing the lakes of east Tennessee, and researching my genealogy. Life has been good and I am truly thankful.