When CadetStuff was a mad gleam in the eyes of barely enough people to seat a poker game, one of the first things some yahoo said was "Hey, man, if this is gonna be CadetStuff, we'd better bloody well get some cadets in here to work on this thing..."

This seemed like a Good Plan, as it would allow us to have them do most of the work while we Senile Members hogged the glory, which worked great at our home squadrons. So we moped around and finally rooked Jerry Horn and Mike Crockett into helping out. These two guys seemed like they either didn't know what they were getting into or just had way, way too much time on their hands. (It turned out to be the former. - Ed.)

Mike and Jerry were East Coast cadet officers. Both were prolific on the national CAP-Cadet mailing list and both seemed to have their heads screwed on in the right direction. After foolishly accepting our offer, Mike served in several different positions on the staff as well as penning some excellent articles, and even serving as the official CadetStuff "t-shirt hander-outer," getting former and current National Commanders to gamely hold up a CadetStuff shirt and mug for the camera.

Mike found out the hard way that 'tempus fugit' is more than just a dirty-sounding Latin phrase. Time flies, and for a busy guy like Mike, it flies like a B-58 Hustler and it's harder to find than a donut at Wing Commander's Call. Mike is a college student and he works full time, which leaves him with far too little of that precious stuff to keep picking up our dry cleaning.

So I am unhappily announcing that Mike Crockett has elected to leave the staff of CadetStuff and concentrate on school, work, and what remains of his cadet career (Career? After staffing this rag? HA! - Ed.) as this year's Maryland Wing Cadet of the Year.

Mike's been with us from the beginning, and we will miss his wise counsel and quick wit around these parts. Plus those excellent frappes he used to whip up...

Thanks much, Mike. As we say in ballooning: Blue skies and soft landings.