BY GARY WAYNE COX
* Aircraft: Big Sandy Unicom…Citation six…two…six…Bravo…Charlie…10 miles to the northeast, inbound for landing…*
*Unicom: No answer...*
I’m usually open from dawn to dusk at Big Sandy Regional Airport, except Sunday evenings and some holidays. When you run an airport like Big Sandy, you never know when your business is coming or where it is coming from.
It’s amazing how often business comes at the last few minutes of the day or after I get home. It’s not unusual to be called out in the middle of the night for a medical flight. I was even called out on Christmas Eve for an air ambulance once. I get very little business late on Sundays, and that’s when our family gets together for dinner, so I usually close at 6 o’clock on Sundays.
As I was leaving one Sunday evening, I noticed some people sitting in the parking lot of the airport. That’s not unusual. People often come to Airport Road looking for elk and deer. Sometimes there will be 20 cars driving back and forth, hoping to see the wildlife.
Airport Road is a beautiful place with large meadows, beautiful sunsets and lots of wildlife. Owls, deer, wild turkeys, elk, I have even spotted a bear a few times. Airport Road has it all. I call Airport Road one of Eastern Kentucky’s best tourist attractions. I like to joke that I run the only zoo in America with a 5,000-foot runway in the middle of it.
I threw up my hand at the people sitting in the parking lot. They made no attempt to stop me and I had no idea they had people flying into the airport. I just waved and drove off, not realizing I knew the people in the parking lot. It was Jim and Cathy Presley from Martin County. Their daughter, Angaleena, is a successful songwriter from Nashville and a member of the group Pistol Annies. The group members are Angaleena Presley, Ashley Monroe and several times CMA entertainer of the year Miranda Lambert. About a month earlier, I had watched them perform on the CMA awards. My wife, Rossalene, and I enjoy watching the CMA awards each year and it was especially nice that year to see someone from home on the stage and doing so great.