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Say Cheese!

CLC Instructors (left to right) LtCol Bill Fleming, Maj. Joe Myers, and LtCols Bob Bauer, Joe Weinflash and Rich Augur pose for a picture with their cheese at awards night.
CLC Instructors (left to right) LtCol Bill Fleming, Maj. Joe Myers, and LtCols Bob Bauer, Joe Weinflash and Rich Augur pose for a picture with their cheese at awards night. (click image to view full size)
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CLC Instructors Get Unique Gift

By Clint Parker, Maj
Ashville Composite Squadron Public Affairs Officer

3/6/2016–Ashville, NC–Civil Air Patrol instructors at a recent CLC training held in Asheville, North Carolina, received a surprise gift at the Asheville Composite Squadron’s monthly awards night for their instructive efforts.

A student at the school, from Wisconsin Wing, was so impress with the instructors that he sent a gift of cheese. Cheese is something Wisconsin is famous for. It was sent to the Asheville Squadron Commander, LtCol Harry Fiedler, who was also a student at the CLC training, to give to the staff of the CLC to show his appreciation for their volunteer work as instructors.

This cheese has quite the story behind it. Turns out, according to an email sent to LtCol Fiedler, the cheese maker has found a special place to rest his cheese while it matures. According to the email, “...the cheese...is something unique to Wisconsin. [The] cheddar is made...in a town called Mineral Point. That town was an old lead mining settlement dug into a hillside in the 1830s. To this day that town is littered with old long abandoned mine shafts and they are really quite dangerous.” The cheese maker, “Tony Hook, has his cheese factory on the edge of town and years ago he discovered that these old mine shafts are perfect for storing and aging cheese. Temperature and humidity are constant and ideal, so he found a new practical use for these old mines.”

The instructors were all smiles about the cheese even after hearing it unique aging process. There are no details on how many of the instructors actually consumed the cheese or just are hanging on to it as a nice gesture from a student from another wing.