Stephanie Strand Blomeyer persuaded Jimmy Freeman to document the design and production of the "Flying A" -- initially our class' gift to AHS -- for the website.  Jim graciously consented, but only with the understanding that his purpose in telling the story was NOT to spotlight his role, but to express his gratitude for the honor of serving Avondale High twice!

 

THE FLYING A

by

Jim Freeman

 

As everyone probably knows, our class’s gift to Avondale High School was the famous “Flying A”. It was a work of art, crafted of blue and white mosaic tiles by a local artistic glass shop in Avondale Estates (Llorens Glass Company, I believe.) As with all such projects, there first has to be a plan. My contribution to this effort was to design the Flying A and make the drawing that would be used to make the finished product. Lucky for me, at that time I was taking a Mechanical Drawing class which was taught by Coach Bobby Allen. I had taken this class as a sophomore, when it was taught by Coach Collins, but when I became a senior, I needed another class to fill up my day, so I decided to take Mechanical Drawing again, sort of as a refresher, and to enhance my drafting skills. Anyway, apparently someone on the Flying A committee must have been familiar with my drafting talent, so I was asked if I would be interested in designing the Flying A. Of course, I accepted, and came up with the design drawing that was used by the glass shop to make the Flying A. Since that was a half century ago, I honestly don’t remember how and when the Flying A was presented to the school. My guess is that it would have taken place during an assembly just before we graduated. What I do recall is that the Flying A somehow made an untimely disappearance from its place of prominence, high up on the exterior front wall of the gym, where it had hung for only two or three years. The legend was (although never proved) that some hooligans from our arch rival over in Decatur somehow removed it from the gym and absconded with it to parts unknown. I don’t believe it was ever recovered, or was it?

 

Fast forward to 2006. Out of the blue one day, I received a call from Stephanie Strand Blomeyer. She recalled that I had designed the original Flying A, so when she learned that someone else wanted to give the school a new “A”, she called to see if I might be interested in participating in the project by designing a new one. I truly felt honored to be offered this opportunity, so I eagerly accepted the task. I figured that the original drawing that I had made 42 years earlier had long since been destroyed or lost, so I started looking around for a “model” that I could use for the new version. The best, and only, one that I could put my hands on was in the gold seal that is on the front of the 1964 “Avonues” yearbook. From that small image, I scaled the Flying A up to a size that would be suitable for viewing from Clarendon Avenue in front of the gym. Also, for this design, I decided to utilize a “Computer Aided Design/Drafting” program – AutoCAD – to make the drawings from which the Flying A would be made. Having only limited amounts of spare time available for working on the drawings, it took a couple of weeks to finish them. When I finally had the drawings completed, I emailed them to Perry Stringer, who was the organizer of the new Flying A project. He and Flem Mitchell took the drawings to a plastics shop where the new Flying A was made from a thick sheet of Lexan, and painted Avondale blue with a white border. On December 21, 2006, Perry, Flem and I made the presentation of the Flying A to the school in a small ceremony in the gym. A couple of days later, the Flying A was mounted on the front wall of the gym, in about the same location where the original had once been. I took some photos, one when it was on display in the gym ceremony, and a few more on December 24, just after it was installed on the front wall. The Flying A was taken down temporarily while a movie was being filmed at the school recently, but I have been told that it has been re-installed.

The experience of having designed and drawn both versions of the Flying A means a lot to me. The first one was special because it was the original, albeit only short-lived. I feel more connected to the second one, though, because it was such an honor to have had the opportunity to be of service to my Alma Mater once again. It was my pleasure!