Sioux City native, Colonel George E. “Bud” Day, will be inducted into the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame in a special ceremony on Oct. 1 at the Iowa Aviation Museum at the Greenfield Municipal Airport. An open house will take place from 1–4 p.m. The induction ceremony, scheduled for 2 p.m., will include comments by Colonel Day. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.
Colonel Day will take his place beside other notable Iowans as a member of the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame, including Dr. Peggy Whitson, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in June of this year for her contributions to the space program. With this year’s inductees, 71 Iowans have been honored for their contributions to aviation in Iowa and throughout the world.
In acknowledgement of his success as a soldier and a pilot, Day has received the U.S. Medal of Honor, the National Order of Vietnam, the Air Force Cross – approximately 70 decorations in all. The Sioux City airport has been named Sioux Gateway Airport/Colonel Bud Day Field. Streets bear his name, as do buildings on military bases. He is even part of an American Heritage Heroes baseball card series.
He remains one of the most decorated Iowans and members of the United States Armed Forces. At the time of his retirement from the U.S. Air Force, he had clocked nearly 8,000 flight hours, more than half of that in single-engine jets, flying nearly every fighter craft of his era.
Today, Colonel Bud Day lives with his wife, Doris, in Shalimar, Fla., where he practices law.
For more information on the Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame, contact the Iowa Aviation Museum at
641-343-7184 or e-mail aviation@iowatelecom.net.