Robert (Bob) Vern Lakey

U.S. Navy 

Back in the 5O’s, young men were subject to the four-year draft. When Bob was an Indiana high school senior, one of his teachers was a Reserve Officer. He talked some of the young men into joining the Reserves instead of waiting for their number to come up in the draft. That way, they would only be on active duty for two years instead of four years if drafted. Bob joined the reserves and went through a two-week boot camp and had two weeks of ship duty on Lake Michigan. He then attended meetings once a month. One day he decided to quit his job and go on active duty. He wanted to learn electronics, so he signed up for four years active duty so that he could attend Electronics School in Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) in Millington, Tenn. After this and other follow-on Electronics schools, he was sent to his first duty station in Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, with the Navy Hurricane Hunters (VW-4). They flew into and tracked hurricanes to help the meteorologists better predict the intensity and direction of the hurricanes. They recorded temperature, pressure, humidity, and location of the hurricane. His first assignment was to maintain the communications equipment. Later, heinstalled and maintained the first computer inside the aircraft that collected all the storm information andautomatically sent it back to Weather Center Miami in Florida for broadcast to the public. For those who have never experienced it, flying into a hurricane eye is like riding on a very rough roller coaster! Since 1944, the squadron has miraculously lost only one plane in a hurricane.

Bob served four years of active duty and was awarded the Navy Good Conduct Medal.

After his Navy career ended, Bob was hired by Radio Corporation of America (RCA) at Kennedy Space Centerin Florida. There he worked with ground communications equipment. That job led him into the blockhouse the night of Jan. 27, 1967, when the Apollo 1 crew (Gus Grisson, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee) tragically died. He both saw the tragedy on TV and heard the crew’s last words – experiences that he will never forget.

From there, he was hired by the Boeing Company. They built and maintained the first stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. He was in the Quality Control division during the Apollo missions to the moon. Needless to say, it was an extremely exciting job during an extremely exciting time in American history. He is the proud owner of a certificate that designates that he was “a member of the KSC Government/Industry team that launched Apollo 11 which successfully accomplished man’s first landing on the Moon July 20, 1969.”

Bob gives credit to his Navy electronics education for allowing him to have such wonderful experiences and a career in electronics, which also provided the opportunity for him to operate and retire as an owner of KBJ-TV and radio stations WKBL-AM and WKBQ-FM in Covington.