Beauty queen who christened B-52 bomber in 1964 flies to Tillamook to open exhibit at air museum

 

By Gretchen Ammerman/Oregon Coast TODAY

TILLAMOOK — She’ll be flying nearly 2,000 miles to revisit a plane that hasn’t flown for many years. To be completely accurate, it’s only the cockpit portion of the B-52 bomber, cut into sections in the 1990s during decommissioning.

But Sheryllee Lowe, a former beauty queen who helped christen the plane in 1964, couldn’t be more delighted to reunite with the restored piece of military history.

And Christian Gurling, curator of the Tillamook Air Museum, couldn’t be more excited that she agreed to re-christen it for a ribbon cutting at the museum Saturday, April 1.

“I’m thrilled that she’s coming,” Gurling said. “In the back of my head I had an idea about making this happen but in my wildest dreams I never thought she would really fly across the country for a couple-of-hours-long event.”

Joining Lowe to share the day will be Bob Dehler, who piloted the bomber when it was stationed at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam during the Vietnam War; Danny Schell, who crewed it when it was stationed at Mather Air Force Base in California; and Doug Scroggins of Scroggins Aviation Mock-up & Effects, who owns the cockpit and has loaned it to the museum.

“Scroggins is a real Hollywood guy,” Gurling said. “He’s supplied planes for so many TV shows and movies like “Flight” with Denzel Washington and “Sully” with Tom Hanks.”

Planning began about 18 months ago, when the cockpit came to the museum and Gurling began doing research on it, something he describes as his “favorite thing to do.”

“I found out that it had been stationed in Bangor, Maine, and I saw a bunch of pictures of young Shery christening it,” he said. “I really wanted to see if I could find her and instead I found her son, who was the CEO of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. He took down my information and within half an hour, she called me. So I thought it would be great to do a re-christening.”

Currently living in Ohio to be closer to family, Lowe was serving as Miss Bangor when she broke a bottle on the bow of the B-52. This will be her first trip to Oregon.

“It’s about as far from Bangor as possible,” she said. “My oldest son is taking me out there and escorting me because, as he said, ‘How often to you get to escort Miss Bangor.’”

The pageant title, which also led to a short stint as a TV weather girl, didn’t come easy.

“I didn’t win the first or second time I entered the contest, but I kept coming back so they finally let me win the third time,” Lowe said. “None of the Miss Bangors had ever christened a plane. I also became a stewardess and flew for United, then I became a travel agent before I met the man I’ve been married to for 55 years.”

The plane was originally named “The City of Bangor,” and part of the cockpit’s restoration was new “nose art” by aviation artist Gary Velasco.

“Since the B-52 was renamed “Osiris” (the Egyptian god of the dead) during the Gulf War era, we will be “re-christening” it under that name,” Gurling said.

For Lowe, the years between christenings have flown by.

“I honestly can’t believe it’s 58 years later,” she said. “When I tell people my age they go, ‘Really?’ I have no concept of being 78 years old. I actually didn’t think I would live this long when I was young. You just don’t think about that kind of thing when you’re 20.”

Although it took a bit longer than he expected to finally open the boardable cockpit display, Gurling is proud of how it has all come together and looks forward to meeting Lowe in person.

“She’s very outgoing and engaging and easy to talk to,” he said. “I’m so glad to be able to do this for her.”

For her part, the re-christening is only part of why she’s looking forward to boarding the flight west.

“I haven’t had my son all to myself for five whole days in years,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

• Saturday’s event begins at 11 a.m. at the Tillamook Air Museum, 6030 Hangar Road. For more information, go to tillamookair.com or call 503-842-1130.

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