July 10, 2002

Fans find Blue Angels heavenly

Mother and daughter travel 15,000 miles a year to attend air shows

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       "I live for the Blue Angels."
      As a fan with a capital F-A-N, Carol Morehouse of Milan, Ill., makes the Blue Angels the center of her life.
      Morehouse and her daughter, Debbie Jepson of East Moline, Ill., together founded the Blue Angels Fan Club and spend much of the year heading to air shows, watching performances, writing about air shows for their fan club newsletter and baking cookies for the pilots and crew.
      As a grandmother, Morehouse is at an age when many decide to slow down. Instead, she lives in high gear, working two jobs (baking biscuits at Hardee's and in a warehouse) in between a dozen trips a year to see the Blue Angels. Together the pair put around 15,000 miles on their cars each year traveling to air shows, averaging an out-of-pocket expense of more than $1,000 per show. They also spend a week in November at the Blue Angels' home base in Pensacola, Fla.
      "This has brought me out of a shell," said Morehouse, who was in Traverse City with her daughter last weekend for the National Cherry Festival air show. "For years, all I did was work three jobs, that's all I did. Now this is my life - I always get hugs from them, I have from the beginning."
      "I really love it but my other two kids think I am crazy," she noted.
      Morehouse said that early on she became a friend with one pilot in particular, Rick Young, who has since retired but the families remain friends. This pilot encouraged her and Jepson to start a fan club.
      "He said if you're going to travel to see us why don't you start a fan club," Morehouse said.
      Jepson shares her mother's passion for the Blue Angels, though her interest extends to flying in general. (The words 'Air Force Thunderbirds' have been known to pass her lips, much to her mother's chagrin.)
      Over the years, Jepson has taken pilots training, flown air combat maneuvers and completed acrobatic runs in an open cockpit plane. In her pursuit of anything airborne, she even purchased a broken down jet and began restoring it until spare parts could no longer be purchased by civilians.
      She dates her lifelong passion for flying to an early-1970s rejection notice from the Blue Angels when she requested a flight with them. Thirty-plus years later, she is still waiting for a chance to pull some Gs in an F/A-18 Hornet (the simulator she visited at a Boeing plant in St. Louis was cool, but not the real thing.)
      "I've always loved airplanes," said Jepson, who works with ADHD kids and is a wildlife rehabilitator. "Even as a kid, I would shave the heads of my Barbie dolls and throw them into toy airplanes."
      In the mid-1990s, Jepson began taking her mother to air shows, although the idea was not well received at first. In fact, Morehouse only went along to spend quality time with her daughter.
      "I wanted to get her out of the house," Jepson recalled. "I was worried about her and wanted to spend some time with her."
      However, the reluctant Morehouse quickly transformed into a devoted fan who has since filled the walls of three rooms in her house with Blue Angel memorabilia (she's starting on the living room and the ceilings in the other rooms.)
      For Morehouse, being a Blue Angels fan extends to nurturing the pilots, members of the crew and families. She is famous for her home-baked cookies, bestowing thousands each year to the Blue Angels team when she visits them at air shows.
      "I always have a dinner for them when they come to town for an air show and I cook it all myself," Morehouse said.
      Morehouse calls the Blue Angels Fan Club, which officially began in 1996, the first and only of its kind. The club has members from around the world and Morehouse has met fellow enthusiasts from England and Japan.
      Noting that the fan club is not affiliated in any way with the United States Navy or the Blue Angels, Morehouse and Jepson provide a periodic newsletter and discounts to Blue Angels collectibles from third-party vendors. In addition, club T-shirts, jackets and bumper stickers are available for members. They also donate the club's profits every year to the Make-A-Wish foundation in honor of the men and women in the Armed Services past and present.
      Both women want to promote the Blue Angels to as many people as possible, making sure to acknowledge the crew for their efforts as well.
      Nothing can make them angrier than to hear someone call their beloved pilots 'hotshots' or 'dare devils.'
      "Everybody thinks it's glamorous but they have a hard, hard job," Jepson said. "The Blue Angels pilots are doing up there what they do every day in combat or on carriers. And one of the biggest things we push is that they wouldn't be up there without the crew."
      Morehouse said her efforts over the years on behalf of the fan club and the Blue Angels pilots and crew have been very rewarding - especially the friendships made.
      "You don't get 'em better, it's good people to be around," she said. "I don't do any of this because I want praise, I do it for them."
      For more information on the Blue Angels Fan Club, contact R.R. #2, Box 634A, 15315 Coaltown Road, East Moline, IL 61244 or e-mail at myangel5@msn.com.