Written by Dr. Nino Campana

This photo was taken at the Soo Modellers annual awards presentation, probably around 1960. The first three fellows are well known to “vintage” club members and friends. A small portion of the late Paul Butcher’s planes will be posted here, courtesy of his daughter Sarah. There are a couple of more recent photos of Bill here (May 23, 2015).

Barry Cooper was Fleet’s best buddy, so he can tell you a lot about him. One day, Elgie was flying an aerobatic model that suddenly dived straight down into the ground directly in front of Barry, all but touching him. That was the day we all started wearing hard hats.

Glen Allen was a Navy vet, very friendly, a bachelor with a great sense of humour. He was also bashful. He was a ships artificer, and received commendations for his services. He was a Native Canadian. One day he asked me to launch his single channel model which he had started. I did a good job of it and off it went in a straight line. Glen asked me, “Did you turn on the receiver? No… The model ran out of fuel and landed hard. Glen said, “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t turn on the transmitter…” I had nicknamed him The Deacon, so we called him Deacon Allen.. He lived alone on the 4th Line, and died in his 60s of a sudden heart attack. His siblings, of whom we had no inkling, arranged his funeral. The Club attended en masse