Civil Air Patrol Cadet Lieutenant Colonel and Mount freshman, Haley Blevins of Lexington Park, Md., was recently awarded the Aerospace Education Cadet of the Year Award at the 2006 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition held in Washington D.C.  The award and conference are sponsored by the Air Force Association.

The award was presented to Cadet Blevins by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Honorable Michael Wynne, and the Air Force Chief of Staff, General T. Michael Moseley.  

Cadet Blevins was selected from 35,000 Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cadets across the United States to receive this prestigious award because of her many accomplishments working and teaching at local civil air patrol squadrons in the Maryland Wing and Middle East Region.  

She has been a member of CAP for 6 years and is a member of the St. Mary’s Composite Squadron, and Chairperson of the Maryland Wing (State) Cadet Advisory Council. Cadet Blevins participated in the International Air Cadet Exchange to England in 2005 and was the International Air Cadet project officer for the exchange to Maryland in 2006. At the Mount, she is majoring in computer science but still finds time for flying: Cadet Blevins recently soloed for the first time, passed the FAA  private pilot written test and is presently working toward obtaining her private pilot’s license.

For more information on the CAP, visit the Maryland Wing website page at: http://www.mdcap.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.display&pageID=239 or contact Brenda Reed at breed@mdcap.org or 410-553-6394 (W).

There are approximately 1,300 members of CAP in Maryland. Last year wing members flew 34 search and rescue missions and were credited with 23 finds.