The entries in the internet
encyclopedia Wikipedia inform us that the world’s busiest airport in regular operation is the
Hartsfield Airport, located some seven miles south of Atlanta Georgia. Each year Hartsfield processes 900,000
aircraft traffic movements, landings and takeoffs. This is an average of 17,000 traffic
movements each week.
However, there is another airport in
the United States that processes nearly 50% more traffic movements, landings
and takeoffs, at a total of 25,000 traffic movements in a week, though for only
one week each year. This airplane
phenomenon is played out each year in July or August at the Wittman Regional
Airport, just two miles south of Oshkosh, a lakeside city in Wisconsin.
The name Oshkosh means claw in the
tribal Menominee language, and it was the name of a notable chief in the early
days of European settlement. Fur traders
established the first European settlement, though the timber trade spurred
subsequent development. At one stage,
Oshkosh was known as the Sawdust Capital of the World, with 62 lumber mills in
the area. The city was incorporated in
1853, and the population these days is around 70,000.
Oshkosh is home to three divers
tourist attractions:-
* The Aviation museum
with 250 historic airplanes and five aviation cinemas
* The Creation Museum
with ¾ million square
feet of walk through exhibits
* The Historic Adventist
Village with 3 blocks of historic buildings and artifacts
Oshkosh is best known for its Annual
Air Show. This event is staged every
summer around the end of July and the beginning of August, and it draws half a
million visitors from as many as seventy different countries. Thousands of people are accommodated in neat
rows of tents on the enlarged property measuring nearly 2¼ square miles,
and besides each tent is a parked airplane, not a motor car. There are some 800 commercial exhibits on
display for the weeklong event.
For this year’s event just a
few weeks back, nearly one thousand media personnel came in from countries on
five different continents to provide news reports for back home newspapers and
radio & TV stations. The annual air
show also operates its own FM radio station in order to provide news and
information to the massive number of attendees.
The airport supervises three runways
and while in operation for the annual air show, there is one departure or one
landing every ten seconds, the world’s busiest.
During this year’s
air show, 2,500 participants co-operated in the construction of a Zenith Cruzer
airplane which was flown for the first time on the last day of the show.
A few days after the end of the
Annual Air Show this year, this same property was taken over for a major
international youth festival. This event
ran for almost a week, running from August 11 through 15, and it attracted a
total attendance of more than 50,000 young people from fifty different
countries.
These Camporee events are staged for
young people known as Pathfinders and this year’s Camporee was planned under the name Forever
Faithful International Camporee. These
Camporees are organized by the Youth Department of the Seventh-day Adventist
denomination and they are for young people in the age bracket from 10 - 15
years, together with family members and church leaders; they are staged every
five years.
The Pathfinder organization is very
similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.
It began in 1907 and today there are 2 million Pathfinders in 90,000
Pathfinder Clubs in 150 countries worldwide.
The huge Air Show property at Oshkosh is one of the few available venues
in the United States that is large enough to accommodate the influx of
attendees with all of the events and activities.
A large number of the youthful
attendees participated in community events in Oshkosh, and they also entered into many different contests and
events in the Camporee itself. Guided
drones were in use for the monitoring of motor traffic, and for aerial
photography. A special one thousand
piece jig saw puzzle featuring the Camporee was made available at this year’s event.
Local media, radio TV &
newspaper, provided ample coverage of the Pathfinder Camporee, and the Camporee
administration provided a daily newspaper in color. International news from the Camporee via
satellite and TV was provided by the Hope Channel from Silver Spring in Maryland
on the edge of Washington DC and by 3ABN TV from Illinois with its two mobile
vans. The Camporee at Oshkosh also
operated its own local FM station, Pathfinder Radio, on 89.4 MHz in order to provide
information and news to attendees.
Among the many display booths was
one that gave an overview of the activities of Adventist World Radio. Yes, AWR was there! A special issue of the youth magazine, Guide,
was dedicated entirely to the work and results of AWR ministry, and display
boards showed the widespread outreach statistics of AWR programming. The AWR booth was under the direction of
Shelley Freesland, who is
Communication Director at the AWR headquarters
in suburban Washington DC.
Among the interesting AWR
statistics:-
On the air worldwide in
nearly 100 languages from 10 shortwave transmitter sites
Program production in 70
affiliated studios on all continents
1500 FM stations in
Russia carry AWR programming
Nationwide coverage
throughout India on FM and other local media
On the air to Asia and
the Pacific from 5 shortwave transmitters on the island of Guam
The next Pathfinder Camporee is
scheduled for Oshkosh again, during the summer of the year 2019.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 291 via Anker Peterson)