Louisville Life Covers The Lee Bottom Fly-In

It's not often an airport or aviation event gets great coverage.  Five to ten minutes of video isn't rare, but seven minutes of excellent media, combined with a positive message, is almost unheard of.  First you have to find someone interested in covering the subject; next you have to get everyone on the same page; finally, everything has to fall into place.  It's for these reasons the best productions sometimes happen by chance.

Several months ago, Ginger and I ended up sitting at a table with Gary and Angela Bartley Pahler.  It was a chance meeting at a restaurant in Louisville.  Ten minutes into the conversation, we had met Gary, heard about their life together, and learned she had been trying to get him to Lee Bottom for some time.  During the early years of the fly-in, Angela was a fixture here at the airport.  If something was going on, she was around, and because of the time she'd spent here she wanted him to see it.

Gary and Angela - They were too busy during the fly-in to get a
photo of them both together.

As for Gary, he is a producer and director at Louisville Life, a show about life around Louisville. Always on the lookout for potential subjects to cover, the idea of the Lee Bottom Fly-In came up. Who can say no to that?  Well, I can.

I am so incredibly tired of people jumping at the offer of coverage without thinking. When approached by someone in the media about the opportunity of having their event featured, people seem to lose their minds.  I guess they can almost see themselves being the next reality star.  But, I'm more cautious than that.

Knowing the song and dance stroking is usually little more than a cover story for a chance to paint aviation as an evil killer of babies and dreams, Gary would end up being the next guy who had to listen to my grilling.  You should never let anyone in the media profession video anything at any aviation event unless you are completely sure of what they intend to do with it.   Angela was always a great champion of aviation, and although I had known her for decades (yeah decades) and Gary was her husband, protecting the reputation of aviation was just something I was not going to leave to chance. Fortunately, as I suspected, Angela was still the supporter of flying she always was and Gary was a very kind and honest man.  So, we agreed to try to make it happen.  The fly-in would be covered. 

And so, that's the story of how a chance meeting over Thai food resulted in Lee Bottom being featured on KET.  In the end, the effort Gary and his crew put out on their days off resulted in some of the best coverage we've ever had.  It is a very well balanced representation of the event and we hope you'll take time to watch it and share it with your friends.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this segment happen.  It was a great first year back event and it is very nice to see it get such great publicity.

If you missed the link earlier, Click here to go to the Louisville Life website.  Or, if you just want to watch the segment without leaving, here it is.




*Special thanks to Angela for her highly specialized Jeep driving and hat styling skills.