Early Life
While growing up during the dust bowl, his mother encouraged his creativity and nurtured his artful nature and sense of arrangement. His mechanical aptitudes came from working on a farm fixing equipment with his father.
From playing trombone, to painting, Bailey was an artful individual at a very young age. He recalls; “I made carvings from the clay banks near my home and won a prize at the county fair for an adobe house I built as a young boy.”
Bailey attended grade school at the Dodge City Kansas Air Force Base at the turn of the war. He moved back to Hutchinson after his mother’s death and lived with his aunt and uncle until he completed high school.
During Bailey’s senior year of high school, he took flying lessons through a group called “the flying farmers”. This group believed that the younger generation should know how to fly in order to help their older counterparts obtain necessary farming equipment. After graduating high school, Bailey used his skills to join the U.S. Air Force. Bailey received one of the highest mathematical test scores and was quickly accepted into the Air Force because of his exceptional grade and prior flying experience. He was one of the youngest men granted to serve.
Read more about this topic: Robert Leroy Bailey
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