43
Memorial celebration in Warren honors Neil Armstrong
Photo
Cortland resident Garey Watson of the Trumbull County Honor Guard places a wreath at the Apollo 11 lunar module replica site on Parkman Road Northwest in Warren. The replica was built a decade ago to honor Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, who died Saturday at age 82. A memorial for Armstrong was Wednesday at the site.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was a traveler in numerous ways, including trips to live in Champion Township, Warren and many other Ohio communities.
Born in Wapakoneta, north of Dayton in 1930, Armstrong and his family changed residences throughout his youth because of his father’s job, according to biographies.
But what most biographies don’t say is that Armstrong, who died Saturday in Cincinnati at age 82, lived in Champion and Warren as many as six different times over a decade, Warren resident Dan Mathey said Wednesday.
Mathey was among about 100 people who turned out for a memorial celebration held at the lunar module replica site on Parkman Road Northwest, built a decade ago to honor Armstrong.
Mathey said he learned about Armstrong’s early days in Trumbull County from talking to Armstrong and locals who knew him. Mathey was involved in lunar module project by making drawings of the site.
“He said sometimes [the Armstrong family] moved as many as six times in one year,” Mathey said of Armstrong. He believes they mostly stayed with relatives.
Biographies say Armstrong was exposed to flight as early as age 2 at an air show in Cleveland, but it’s undisputed that Armstrong’s first flight, when he was 6 years old, was at the Warren Airways landing strip at the present-day lunar module site. The site is in front of the Trumbull Plaza and its Kmart store.
Mathey helped Warren man Pete Perich turn the Perich family’s dream of creating an Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Module replica and placing it at the site where Armstrong took his first airplane ride.
The Rev. Linda Perich Carpenter, Pete Perich’s daughter, said Wednesday that Armstrong’s first flight made him want to be a pilot.
“Neil said he remembers the flight very vividly,” Mathey said.
Armstrong and his father were on their way from their home in Champion to a church service in Warren when they passed the air strip, saw the Ford Tri-Motor, and arranged a ride.
“His dad got deathly sick, and Neil said he had the time of his life,” Mathey said. “And [Armstrong] said that was something he could do that his father couldn’t do.”
Linda Perich Carpenter told the crowd the idea for the Lunar Module replica came to her while praying at a church in Washington, D.C., shortly after she saw the Apollo 11 spacecraft in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 2001.
Her father acted on the idea and received commitments from a number of people within a couple weeks to help him bring the idea to life, she said.
The replica was built with titanium donated by RMI Titanium of Niles, which also provided several employees to help volunteers assemble the replica, said Curt Koch of RMI, who was maintenance superintendent at the time.
Koch, who was among those who helped with the welding, said Wednesday the lunar module project was a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” in part because it gave him the chance to meet Armstrong.
Mathey, who gives presentations to school children at the lunar module replica, said he agrees with city Councilman Eddie Colbert, who told the crowd the Lunar Module inspires children by showing them that they can start out in a place like Warren and “reach the stars.”