Two men who have devoted many a summer to the Albert Head Air Cadet Summer Training Centre in Metchosin were honoured with lifetime achievement awards.
Lt.-Col. Richard Mudryk and Lt.-Col. (Ret) Doug Slowski received the Cadet Instructors Cadre Lifetime Achievement award, June 27.
Only 13 officers in the country were awarded with the honour.
Mudryk has spent the past 50 years with cadets. He’s been one himself and later worked with young cadets. Currently, he is the commanding officer at the Albert Head Cadet Summer Training Centre.
“The buck stops here,” he said. “The training is excellent. It’s not just sports or academics, it combines everything. I think it’s the best youth organization in Canada.”
In the winter, the 64-year-old lives in Nanaimo, but every summer he lives in Metchosin at the Albert Head camp. This is the fifth summer he’s spent there.
Slowski was the commanding offer at Albert Head from 2000 to 2005.
He was a cadet during his high school years and then signed up as an adult to help new young cadets. He joined the first cadet squad in Campbell River when he was 40 years old.
“Before that, they were busing kids to Comox,” Slowski said.
He retired from cadets last year when he turned 65. Now he volunteers with the Air Cadet League. That group maintains the planes and gliders for the cadets and helps with fundraising. Slowski also lives in Nanaimo.
The camp sees more than 1,000 cadets every summer from across B.C. and the Northwest Territories.
For more information on the Air Cadet Program, Cadet Instructors Cadre and Albert Head Air Cadet Summer Training Centre, go to www.cadets.ca.
charla@goldstreamgazette.com