Over 200 cadets made up the first graduating class at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and completed their work on June 3, 1959.
This story is part ofColorado at 150. Each Fifty for 150 story focuses on an event that helped define Colorado over 150 years of statehood. Newsline is publishing one Fifty for 150 story every weekday in reverse chronological order until the sesquicentennial, Aug. 1, when the final of 50 stories, about the declaration of statehood, will appear.
“With a thundering shout, the 207 cadets hurled their white caps into the air as Brig. Gen. Henry R. Sullivan, academy commandant, stepped to the microphone onstage in the cadet theater at 10:45 am. and announced: ‘Gentlemen of the graduating class—you are dismissed,’” reported The Rocky Mountain News the following morning…