[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 74 (Friday, May 25, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E979-E980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP MONTH GALA HONOREES

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM OSBORNE

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 25, 2001

  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, May is National Scholarship Month and one 
of its galas took place May 23, 2001, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The 
purpose was to present two significant awards--the Trustee's Award, 
which was given to the General Mills Foundation, and the President's 
Award--recognizing a major corporation's and an individual's perpetual 
assistance to students. The President's award was given to my longtime 
friend, Col. Barney Oldfield, USAF (Ret.). Born in Tecumseh, Nebraska, 
he left the state in 1940 to enter military service. Col. Oldfield has 
lived and worked in 81 countries and on every continent in the world, 
but he and his late wife, Vada, never forgot their Nebraska roots. He 
is a discredit to General MacArthur's statement, ``Old soldiers never 
die, they just fade away,'' because he remains a generous contributor 
to education and medical research as he nears his 92nd birthday.
  Since we share a great affection for both our home state and the 
needs of education, I want to share with my colleagues the acceptance 
speech of Col. Oldfield. But first, I would like to include the 
introduction that the Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America's 
President, Dr. William C. Nelsen, delivered that evening:

       As we gather here for the fourth presentation of our 
     President's Award, more than eight hundred young people as 
     far away as Singapore and Hong Kong, as nearby as North and 
     South Dakota and Nebraska, are in careers or preparing for 
     careers because of the one we honor and his late wife. And 
     this is only the beginning as endowments created by them 
     insure education assisting perpetual motion addressing not 
     only the future but as far out as infinity. Communicators 
     themselves, she an artist and himself a writer, no matter 
     where life put them, these skills were put to use in many 
     different applications. In this year, as he works himself 
     toward being 92, he will be in the documentary for theater 
     release called, Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song, and his 
     participation in Marlene's Biography is being constantly 
     replayed on May 26, on The History Channel. He will be in the 
     Stephen Ambrose funded two hour long production of Moment of 
     Truth. When supreme headquarters, allied powers, Europe 
     celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last month, researchers 
     in Belgium found he was the only survivor on Order No. 1 Dash 
     I, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's advance man so they had 
     him on camera on all armed forces network TV stations in 
     western Europe telling anecdotes about how the greatest and 
     most successful coalition began. He has been a celebrity 
     ghostwriter known internationally for clients as varied as 
     heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman and jokes for 
     Ronald Reagan for forty years. Imagine what it was like that 
     day when president Ronald Reagan made that Bittburg 
     reconciliation gesture in Germany with German chancellor 
     Helmut Kohl. When he watched on his TV set as Kohl, 
     accompanied by Luftewaffe General Johannes Seinhoff and 
     President Reagan, accompanied by Paratrooper General Matthew 
     Ridgeway walked up to the monument--and he had been the 
     ghostwriter for all four! When his beloved wife, Vada, died 
     after eleven years of Alzheimer's disease . . . and she had 
     been one of the original WAACS, he asked that there be no 
     eulogy as she would always be a ``work in progress'' and 
     after Taps at the Fort McPherson National Military Cemetery 
     that the bugler perform Reveille so she could re-enlist 
     herself as a research ally. Her fund at the Nebraska Medical 
     Center in Omaha has drawn more than $200,000 and grows daily. 
     He has written, spoken, and done documentary participations 
     on military subjects all his life but has never taken the 
     money, giving it instead to scholarships and medical 
     research. This is a partial portrait of the one we honor 
     tonight. A tough act to follow, but how much better off our 
     world would be if others made similar gestures. His motto has 
     always been, ``If each of us who could, would help one who 
     needs it, we would have very few social problems.''
       For all these and many other good reasons, these are why 
     our fourth President's Award is presented to Col. Barney 
     Oldfield, USAF (Ret.).
       [Response of Col. Barney Oldfield, USAF (Ret.) on the 
     receipt of the President's Award at the observance of 
     Scholarship Month in St. Paul, Minnesota in the evening of 
     May 23, 2001:]
       How can one properly respond to an incredible honor such as 
     your President's Award? Years ago at the old Astor Hotel in 
     New York I stepped on an elevator to go to one of their many 
     meeting rooms to be the luncheon speaker. Only one other 
     person was on it and we were stuck between floors for thirty 
     minutes! I introduced myself. He reached his hand and said he 
     was Gutzon Borglum. . .the sculptor who had done Mt. 
     Rushmore, whose audience that day were national geographic 
     devotees. That has to be a tough audience. I said, ``How do 
     you start a speech to get the

[[Page E980]]

     attention of such a group?'' He said he was going to tell 
     them of the time he almost fell off Abraham Lincoln's nose!
       I don't know how he did that day, but I opened my remarks 
     by telling of my elevator hiatus with him and it never went 
     over as well anywhere else in my life.
       But who will rescue me today?
       Once when I had a long lunch with comedian Jack Benny, I 
     asked him how he had acknowledged some meaningless award 
     given him. He said, ``I was introduced, and knew I was going 
     to be hooted anyway, so I looked sternly at the audience and 
     said--once every one hundred years or so a great man is born. 
     Now that I am here, make the most of it.''
       To let you know I have a hard time taking myself seriously. 
     I have worn this red hat. The late Charles Kuralt did a CBS 
     ``Who's Who'' sequence about me called The Man in the Red Hat 
     in 1977, in which he called me the king of the press agents. 
     Why? In 1941, I made and gave Sonja Henie a valentine made of 
     ice, which is still in storage in Omaha, Nebraska, more than 
     60 years old, which he declared was the longest running, 
     open-ended publicity stunt in the world. I have worn this red 
     hat in 81 countries on every continent in the world.
       On February 1, 1938, Robert L. Ripley carried me into more 
     than 1,000 periodicals in his Believe-it-or-Not feature, and 
     it's been like that ever since.
       But this president's award is highly serious. A peering 
     into the reality that has always been a part of my late wife, 
     Vada, and myself . . . a constancy of interest in education 
     and medical research. She was one of the original WAACS 
     (forerunner of the women's army corps) . . . served two years 
     as a teletype operator with HQ 12th Air Force across North 
     Africa, Sicily, and Italy. We are pedestaled in the 
     celebrities in uniform section of the great US Air Force 
     Museum in Dayton, Ohio, as a military couple. Clark Gable, 
     Jimmy Stewart, bandleader Glenn Miller, and the fortieth 
     President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, all surround 
     and look down at us.
       Vada, who fought Alzheimer's Disease 11 years, was still 
     lucid when it happened and when I told her about it, she said 
     ``It's a good thing they can't talk as they're probably 
     saying, `There goes the neighborhood!'' When she died two 
     years ago and was given full military honors at Fort 
     McPherson National Cemetery, I told them there would be no 
     eulogy as her story would always be unfinished . . . a work 
     in progress, and had the bugler play ``Reveille'', the 
     military wakeup call. There is a Vada Kinman Oldfield 
     Alzheimer's research fund at the University of Nebraska 
     Medical Center in Omaha, which allies her inspiration with 
     research expertise and is funded to address infinity. A 
     thousand people a day go by her tribute on its wall.
       As we met on the campus of the University of Nebraska and 
     went the world around . . . none more than us know of the 
     extraordinary difference a college education can make in the 
     lives of two people. Global experience has shown us how 
     brutal lack of knowledge can be . . . how awful is the dirt 
     and disease in which so many lives are lived.
       We are great believers in living memorialization, naming 
     awards for friends . . . the admired . . . who inspire . . . 
     motivate . . . piggy-back history on educational assistance. 
     We campaign endlessly against those who are in foundations 
     who see themselves only as collectors of money and have 
     neither interest nor time for publicizing the impact on 
     recipients and the goals they achieve because of help at the 
     crossroads of their lives.
       Oddly, the question Vada and I were, and are, constantly 
     asked has been, ``Why have you been so persistently 
     interested in education when you have no kids of your own?'' 
     Our answer has always been, ``Who says we don't have any 
     kids? You don't read our Christmas mail!'' It comes from all 
     over the world--some as much as twenty years after winning 
     one of our scholarships. Those we knew as struggling students 
     write to us about their successes and their achievements. On 
     the Kinman-Oldfield family foundation stationary there is a 
     photo of Vada giving the first scholarship to an electrical 
     engineering student named Tony Kozlik. He was the son of a 
     dairy worker and his mother was a seamstress and he had to 
     drive 43 miles to and from school each day. The scholarship 
     made possible a room on campus. He graduated 4th in a class 
     of 448 and made the dean's list. He has been an employee of 
     Honeywell ever since.
       What we are talking about here is the greatest game in 
     town. Give some thought to it personally. You will be 
     startled about how good you feel about yourself And you, too, 
     may come to enjoy your Christmas mail from kids you never 
     had, but will never forget you for what you did. For my Vada 
     and for me, many thanks for this President's Award!
       It will not be un-employed, but on view at functions 
     related to the Vada Kinman Oldfield and Col. Barney Oldfield 
     Nebraska Dollars for Scholars Program we have launched in 
     Nebraska.

     

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