The Ramada Express honors American heroes with a free 4-screen, multi-media presentation entitled "The American Spirit" that plays daily and a weekly speakers program that is also free to the public. Events are held in the Pavilion Theater. For information, call 1-800-243-6846.
Two speakers will lead off in March. Weymouth Symmes, Vietnam Veteran, Swift Boat sailor and author is the featured speaker on Tuesday, March 1, at 1 p.m. World War II pilot (WASP) and author Betty Strohfus will present her interesting story of the first women military pilots on Wednesday, March 2, at 1 p.m.
Symmes was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Combat Action Ribbon, Presidential Unit Citation for Extraordinary Heroism, two Navy Unit Commendations, and the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation (Gallantry Cross).
He was born in Helena, Mont. and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Montana. He entered the banking business in 1975 and retired in 1999 as a Senior Vice President with First Security Bank of Missoula.
Symmes now spends summers in Missoula and winters in Bullhead City, Ariz. He is the author of "War on the Rivers, A Swift boat sailor's chronicle of the battle for the Mekong Delta." The book chronicles his four-year enlistment in the U.S. Navy and concludes with his adjustment to civilian life and his eventual re-union with others who served.
Symmes also includes an analysis of the meaning of Vietnam and how it resonates in our own time. His presentation will include photos taken in Vietnam and transferred to video.
Betty Strohfus first took a ride in a small plane over 60 years ago. In 1941, she offered her new bicycle for collateral and borrowed $100 from a local bank in Faribault, Minn. to take flying lessons and later became a member of the Civil Air Patrol.
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the call went out for women pilots to help fly cargo and train male pilots. Strohfus and about 25,000 other women applied to be a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). Only 1,830 were admitted and 1,074 graduated from training.
Women flew more than 70 different types of aircraft from fighters to bombers and ferried thousands of new aircraft from factories to points of embarkation for the battlefront.
Strohfus was stationed in Las Vegas, Nev. where she primarily flew the North American AT-6 "Texan" on training missions for gunners. She would dive her plane at B-17s.
Twenty years ago Strohfus started telling her story about the WASPs and has made presentations throughout the country. She still resides in Faribault, Minn. and has co-authored the book "Love at First Flight." Recently her biography "And Still Flying" was published.
From March 1-31, if you hit four natural 8's on any Video Poker machine, you will receive a maximum bonus pay of up to $125. Players must be a member of the King of Clubs Players' Club and have their Players' Club card inserted in machine to receive bonus pay.
Natural four of a kind only and no wild cards are included in the bonus pay promotion. Multi-play machines are restricted to a maximum of one-line pay. Maximum coin bet only.
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