Kentucky's Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Sponsor Veterans for Honor Flight

Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, including Owen Electric Cooperative, are excited to announce Honor Flight 2025 will depart Blue Grass Airport on Saturday, Aug. 23 for Washington, D.C. The flight will transport 68 Kentucky veterans for a day of sightseeing in the Capitol City, and to visit memorials dedicated to their service. Following the flight, a welcome home reception is scheduled for approximately 7 p.m. at the airport. The public is invited to attend. 

Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives began working with Honor Flight in 2010 to honor Kentucky’s veterans. This marks the 14th year the cooperatives have partnered with Honor Flight.

The flight will carry veterans that served during the Vietnam War, including multiple recipients of the Purple Heart.

“I didn’t go to Vietnam to be owed anything. I went to serve my country,” said Meade County resident and Purple Heart recipient Harold Edward Camp, who was wounded in the leg in Vietnam in 1967. Camp served as a helicopter door gunner, using machine gun equipment mounted to the doorway of helicopters.   

Camp said after all of these years, this will be the first time he visits the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 

“I’m just lucky to have made it back,” said Janis Smith, who served in the U.S. Army from 1968-1970. During his service, Smith was involved in combat patrols and ambush operations, spending multiple days at a time in Vietnamese jungles without shelter. Smith suffered a wound leaving permanent nerve damage to his leg. “It’s something you carry with you. I came home, that’s more than others got.”

The Casey County resident said he’s looking forward to meeting the other veterans boarding the flight, and listening to their stories. 

The 2025 mission will again be coordinated by Honor Flight Kentucky. “It’s a privilege to be able to fly these veterans to their memorials, and it’s an opportunity to repay them in some small way for their service to our nation and our community,” said Joe Settles, Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Member Services Manager. 

As in years past, veterans will fly from Lexington to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., where they will board buses for a full day of honors and sightseeing. 

The day includes viewing the changing-of-the-guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Honor Flight representatives will participate in a wreath-laying service at the tomb. 

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Kentucky’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives include 17 not-for-profit, member-owned electric cooperatives that serve more than 1.1 million Kentucky residents across 89 Kentucky counties.

They include:

 

  • Big Sandy RECC, Paintsville, Ky.                                 
  • Blue Grass Energy, Nicholasville, Ky.
  • Clark Energy, Winchester, Ky.
  • Cumberland Valley Electric, Gray, Ky.
  • East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Winchester, Ky.
  • Fleming-Mason Energy, Flemingsburg, Ky.               
  • Farmers RECC, Glasgow, Ky.
  • Jackson Energy Cooperative, McKee, Ky.
  • Grayson RECC, Grayson, Ky.  
  • Inter-County Energy, Danville, Ky.     
  • Licking Valley RECC, West Liberty, Ky.
  • Nolin RECC, Elizabethtown, Ky.
  • Owen Electric Cooperative, Owenton, Ky.
  • Salt River Electric, Bardstown, Ky.
  • Shelby Energy Cooperative, Shelbyville, Ky.
  • South Kentucky RECC, Somerset Ky.
  • Taylor County RECC, Campbellsville, Ky.

 

Visit us at www.TogetherWeSaveKY.com.