Great River Honor Flight Announces 80th Mission To Begin 2026 Season

The Great River Honor Flight Board of Directors proudly announces that the 80th mission will be held on April 30, 2026 out of Hannibal, Missouri from the campus of Hannibal LaGrange University. A total of 302 veterans will take part on this trip. These veterans will bring the total of veterans who have been part of the Honor Flight experience to over 2,500 since its start in 2010.
Of them, 26 during the Vietnam era, 2 during the Gulf War and the remaining 4 served between or after those conflicts. They represent Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Army National Guard.
The veterans on this flight come from Missouri (Marion, Audrain, Boone, Cole, Lewis, Lincoln, Moniteau, Monroe, Pike, Ralls, Saline, St. Charles, Tulare, Tulare, and Warren counties), Illinois (Adams, McDonough, Hancock, Sangamon and Winnebago counties), and Iowa (Lee and Scott Counties). We will also have veterans who served with local veterans and are joining them from California, Texas and Nebraska. The veterans
served in a number of roles among them Aviation Mechanic, Paratrooper, Radio Communications, Intelligence Officer, Baker, Postal Clerk and Nuclear Weapons Specialist to showcase the variety of key roles that are part of our Nation’s Armed Forces. A list of the veterans and their hometowns is included at the end of this News Release.
The April 30th trip’s itinerary will follow the itinerary that has been so successful over the past 17 years. It includes breakfast at HLGU’s Cafeteria prior to a 2:00AM departure for a bus ride to Lambert Field in St. Louis where they will board their flight to Baltimore and then on to DC. There they will visit the Vietnam Wall, Korea Memorial, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Air Force Memorial, and also observe first-hand the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington
National Cemetery. That will follow with dinner at the Navy Memorial. The veterans will then head to Reagan International Airport for their return flight back to St. Louis. A charter bus will bring them back to the HLGU Basketball Arena for a rousing homecoming. The expected arrival time back in Hannibal will be around 10:00PM.
Great River Honor Flight was chartered on Veterans Day 2009 with its first flight scheduled on April 13, 2010. Our goal remains to honor the total number of local veterans who served our country with a FREE trip to Washington DC.
To date Great River Honor Flight, the Tri-States’ hub of the Honor Flight program has flown 2,536 local Veterans to Washington D.C. since it was established in 2009. This trip will increase that total to 2,568. Great River Honor Flight, a Missouri Nonprofit Corporation established in October of 2009, was created solely to honor America’s veterans that live in our area for all they have sacrificed by providing, free of charge,
transportation to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices.
Veterans from the local area taking part in the Honor Flight are: Ralph Gardner, Ewing,
Bill Haffner, Don Martin, Bobbi Roland-Minks, Hannibal, and Alan Musser, LaGrange.