Black History Banquet scheduled Feb. 14

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The 25th Annual Black History Banquet will be held Feb. 14 at the Elks Lodge in Mountain Home.

Social hour begins at 6:30 p.m. with dinner at 7:15 p.m. Dress is semi-formal.

Tickets are $30 per person. Call 587-3227 for tickets or more information. Reservations must be made by Feb. 12.

The theme of the event, sponsored by the Mountain Home Community Black History Committee, is "Progress Through Knowledge!"

Music will be provided by The Wakefield's of the Mountain Home Music Store.

Special surprises and give-a-ways will be provided during the evening.

The featured speaker for the evening will be Vencent Gordon, chief, Medical Readiness Flight, 366th Medical Group at Mountain Home AFB.

He has oversight of the hospital's Emergency Management Program, CBRNE program, and is the local Emergency Management Liaison.

Additionally, he has significant input in the hospital's training for deploying personnel and for emergency events in and around the installation.

Vencent was born in Milton, Fla., and raised in Maryland. He graduated from Edgewood High School in 1982 and enlisted in the Air Force in May of 1983.

He attended the University of Maryland and completed course work at Embry Riddle. He attended the Air Force Security Police Academy 1983 and cross trained in 1997 into the Readiness and Emergency Management career field in 1997.

His military awards include the Meritorious Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal and the Air Force Achievement Medal.

Past assignments include Ellsworth AFB, S.D., Andersen AFB, Guam, Barksdale AFB, La., and Misawa AB, Japan. He has been deployed to Darwin, Australia (RAF), Fairford, England (RAF), Osan AB, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Pakistan and Qatar.

Vencent retired from active duty after serving 24 years. Since arriving in Mountain Home in 2004, he has served as president of the African-American Heritage Committee at Mountain Home Air Force Base and is currently the minister of the Mountain Home Church of Christ, where he conducts workshops locally as well as around the United States.

He has been married for over 26 years to the former Karen Hodrick, and they have two children, Travis and Tracey.

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