[HoustonHam] In memory of fallen hams

Chris Boone Cboone at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 2 23:22:33 EDT 2009


http://www.michiganpropertytax.com/articles/QST2002.pdf

Scroll through and you'll see K5YLU, Arthur "Pete" Vela from Groves,
mentioned. His SK listing in QST was the inspiration for the memorial.

In Pete, you never found someone more enthusiastic about ham radio and
wanting to help...so much so, he took a day of vacation to help out at the
Bum Phillips Celebrity Golf Tourney that fateful year of 1983...and it cost
him his life.

To those of us who knew him, he was a good friend and a true ham....who did
not flinch in the eye of disaster nor did he act as more than what he
was...all he saw was those of us involved in the communications for the golf
tournament were having FUN and he wanted to join in. THAT IS the spirit of a
true ham operator..having fun and wanting to cooperate...

Pete was always good for a devil's advocate at times but his opinion was
respected AND he respected others (he would be extremely happy to know 34/94
is about to return to the air...at one breakfast in Port Arthur in the early
1980s, he asked KE5O (then WB5HZC) and I if we could take two ICOM IC-2AT
HTs, which were fairly new at the time, and wire them as a 34/94 rptr and go
put it on his tower at his house to poke at Arthur Kay.....Pete always had
that "shake it up" attitude...I liked that in him! ;).

Pete has been missed and maybe one day, the spirit of what he had and wanted
to do will catch up and come alive again in ham radio. 

It sure could use more of it...

Chris
WB5ITT
Trustee, W5APX



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