Butler, Pa
Story and photographs by Mark Peterson
CCBC held held a press conference yesterday to announce the fact that CCBC and Butler County Community College have now formed a partnership together with High Flight Academy, a private flight school based out of Butler. The Aviation Academy at both community colleges will allow the opportunity for students to take classes at the Butler County campus and airport as well as the Beaver County campus and airport…
Dr. Nicolas Neupauer, President of Butler County Community College and Dr. Roger Davis from Community College Of Beaver County were both present for the occasion…
Dr. Davis offered a comment on the new partnership:
Bob Feree, owner of High Flight Academy, accepted the officiated Federal Aviation Administration certification as part of 141 flight school from Wendy Grimm, a flight service representative from the FAA who was also one of the speakers…
Ike Kelly, manager of the Pittsburgh Butler Regional Airport and Alex Ola, a Mars area high school Junior currently enrolled in CCBC’s High School Aviation Academy, also spoke at the event held in hangar C-8 on this beautiful Wednesday Morning in Butler County. Ola will now be able to take some of his classes at the Butler Airport and at Butler County Community College through High Flight Academy, now that the partnership with CCBC is in place. He previously had to drive to Beaver County for his classes and flight training work…
Kim Geyer, Butler County Commissioner, was on hand and offered her remarks…
Joyce Cirelli, Dean of High School Academies and Dual Enrollment at the Community College Of Beaver County, served as the master of ceremonies for Wednesday’s press conference…
Fabio Roberto, a director and teacher at High Flight Academy, talked about the types of programs that will now be offered…
Roberto also explained a little bit more about the differences between the high school aviation and college age student aviation academies, and how they will both be served at both campuses and at both airports;
A large crowd of media types, local officials, college educators and airport personnel attended the event, and all were given aviator style sun glasses and then posed for a picture to commemorate the occasion…
The press conference was held at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport .