Fox, Gordon W.
Gordon Fox was born on a ranch near Emmet, Nebraska on Aug13, 1939. He attended O’Neill High School where he participated in many sports and extracurricular activities. He lettered in football three years and graduated as the Salutatorian of his class. He joined the Nebraska Army National Guard in O’Neill and served for three years before transferring to the Air Force reserve. He attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Nebraska. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in February of 1962 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force. He entered active duty in February 1962 at the Air Force Institute of Technology where he attended graduate school. He graduated in August 1963 with a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. His first work assignment was at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, where he was involved in flight test engineering of new and modified aircraft. In 1967 he attended pilot training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma and graduated first in his class. During pilot training, he flew the T-41 trainer, the T-37 trainer, and the T-38 trainer. After graduating, he was assigned as a T-38 instructor pilot, training new pilots. He served as a T-38 instructor pilot at Vance AFB, Oklahoma, and Columbus AFB, Mississippi. In 1972, He was assigned to the Royal Thai AFB in Thailand for a year as Base Operations Officer. This was the last year of military involvement in the Vietnam War with our POWs being released in February 1973. Returning to the States in 1973, he was assigned to Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio to the Test Division of the F-5E Fighter System Program Office, responsible for development of the F-5E airplane. His last year there he became the chief of the Test Division and flew the F-5E in California on Production Test Flights. After attending Air Command and Staff college in Alabama, he was assigned to Randolph AFB Texas, first to the Instrument Flight Center as a T-38 instructor pilot and then to the 560th Flying Training Squadron still as an instructor in the T-38, but now training new instructor pilots. Most of his flying was as an instructor pilot in the T-38 aircraft. In 1980, he was assigned to Headquarters Air Training Command, also at Randolph AFB. There, he was assigned as Chief of the Weapons Systems Acquisition Division. That job was to determine training requirements and plan training for new weapons systems being developed for Air Force use. For example, the B-1B Bomber was being purchased during this time period, and his division was involved in early planning for training to bring the bomber to Air Force operational status. He worked with a lot of other personnel at Headquarters to make this happen – his office was just the focal point for initial planning. They did this type work for many Air Force programs being purchased. He spent the remainder of his military career at Headquarters ATC, and retired on 1 Jul 1985. He began his civil service career in 1987 with Trainer Development Division at Randolph AFB, where he served as the assistant manager, responsible for supervising the design, development, and manufacture of a variety of aircrew and technical training projects. In 1995, he was promoted to the manager position. His organization designed, developed, and manufactured trainers for a variety of Air Force operations, mostly aircrew trainers for the pilot training bases, but included fire trainers for the DOD fire training school at Goodfellow AFB, Texas. A major project during this time was developing a weapons load trainer for the B-1B bomber, a full size replica of the fuselage of the aircraft. Four were built and installed at three B-1B Air Force bases and a Technical Training unit. His division also developed trainers for Air Force Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, Texas where all new Air Force recruits receive basic training. In 2001, he retired after 42 years of government service and moved back to O’Neill, Nebraska. He is active in the O’Neill First United Methodist Church, the American Legion Post 93, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 926. Gordon was married to Lorna L. Marcellus for 52 years. They married on Sep 6, 1959 in O’Neill, Nebraska. She passed away on Sep 10, 2011 after a lengthy hospital stay with complications from major back surgery. They have three children, Monty, Marcy, and Mark who all live in Texas. During the year Gordon was in Thailand, Lorna and family lived in O’Neill to be close to her parents, Melvin and Ella Marcellus.