With decades of experience and 14 air shows under his belt, Larry Rewerts is passing his baton onto a younger generation.

Rewerts began his journey as an airshow volunteer in 1979 by producing, with a limited budget, the eleventh Young Men’s Business Club of Lake Charles Airshow.

He continued to volunteer with YMBC until 1984. When the YMBC Louisiana National Airshow XVI got rained out, resulting in no ticket sales, the tradition of an annual air show was at risk.

“The YMBC decided since it rained both days, and they didn’t make any money and they lost a whole lot of their assets to pay the bills that they were never going to do their show again,” Rewerts said.

However, due to a commitment for the Navy Blue Angels to perform in 1985 and Southwest Louisiana’s Sailors Make Good Neighbors program — an effort to encourage the Navy to station ships in Southwest Louisiana and increase jobs — the show had to go on.

“Me and three other guys met and said this doesn’t make sense. We can’t slap the Navy in the face and say we don’t want your jet team …  and, oh by the way, we want your ships. That was very contradictory to us.”

Those three other guys were Tommy Joyce, Jim Holley and Hiram Wilson. The group was tight-knit. “What is unique to me is we weren’t just friends. Jim, me and Hiram were all mechanical engineers working at the PPG plant. Tommy was a C-130 Air Force pilot,” he recalled. “So we had a volunteer life together, a work life together and a social life together.”

They elected Rewerts to request that the YMBC pass the air show on to them. “I said, ‘Look, folks, … this needs to continue. Give it to us legally. Give it to us. We’ll bring it to the community and we’ll ask the community to get involved.’ ”

They succeeded. Rewerts took over as the treasurer, alongside Joyce as president, Hollet as vice president and Wilson as secretary.

“When the four of us took it over, we were just glowing.”

The YMBC’s members were all white males 35 years and younger, Rewerts said. This meant that the airshow volunteers prior to 1985 were unvaried.

When the quartet took over, however, the airshow became an expansive collaboration of 22 civic clubs. Rewerts believes the diversity of these partnerships resulted in the most important part of the story.

“It was wonderful. It was an extremely diverse group of people.”

The reach greatly benefited the production of the 17th Louisiana National Airshow. “We had more social contacts because you socially entertained the performers … we had more business contacts, from advertising to sandbags.”

The effort was herculean. “We went from nothing to giving away $46,000 and we went from one civic club to 22 civic clubs.”

That year, the show reaped $54,000 in profits — $46,000 of these profits were distributed to the volunteers, while the rest was saved for the next show.

The team worked together until the very end that year. “Cleaning it was a massive effort, but the volunteers did that. During the clean up, we were walking arm tip to arm tip down the runway.” He said the group worked to pick up every piece of trash and every small rock.

The diversification didn’t stop there. In 1988, Nancy Koonce became the board president and air show director. “So we went from an-all men civic club to a lady in charge,” Rewerts said. “That’s exciting.”

Under Koonce, the airshow was held every two years.

Unfortunately, there were more hurdles to cross. After significant rain problems in the 1990s, the airshows weren’t producing significant profits, and the board made the decision to discontinue the shows in 1998.

In 2012, after 14 years off, Rewerts read in the American Press that Randall Robb, former executive director of the Chennault Industrial Airpark, and former speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives Chuck Kleckley intended to bring the airshow back.

With his years of experience in tow, Rewerts reached out to give them advice on how to resuscitate the airshow. Months later, he received an invitation to attend the organizational meeting at Chennault and became the first volunteer of the newly named Chennault International Airshow.

The airshows returned the next year, with succeeding shows taking place in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023. The last two shows sold out, proving to be a massive success.

Rewerts is giving up his seat as treasurer on the board this year. He tried to do this, to no avail, in 2021. “A couple of years ago, I tell them I want this to be my last air show. I’ll be 71 … it’s time to turn it over to somebody much younger than me. Guess what happened last July? They made me treasurer.”

His friends made it up to him. The Thursday night before the airshow, they hosted a performer party. This year, Rewerts was the highlight of the occasion, unbeknownst to him.

For his efforts of volunteerism, the board (mostly Mary Jo Bayles, airshow director, he said) honored him, alongside pilots from the Air Force Thunderbirds and U.S. Army Golden Knights.

Both aviation teams gave Rewerts commemorative plaques. The Golden Knights went a step further by gifting him a wooden baton that was passed between parachuters mid-air. These batons are often reserved for politicians, local officials and now, selfless volunteers.

“Our airshow committee shocked me with this honor. To get this from my peers in recognition of my volunteerism is amazing,” Rewerts said. “I was teary-eyed.”

That wasn’t the end of his surprises that night. While receiving honors, thanks and treasures, Rewerts’ family was quietly standing behind him waiting to surprise him. “When I turned around, my daughter and her husband and my only grandchild, who live in Vicksburg, Miss., were watching,” he said. “They were supposed to go Friday night. They were right behind me and I didn’t know it. It was really, really, really special.”

Community is the most precious component of the airshows, and Rewerts contributes the collaboration of volunteers to their success.“This community supports this air show tremendously and has for a long, long time.”

He is aware of the major role that he played, however, and is honored to have been a part of something great.

“It’s very, very rewarding to have, in my life, done this twice.”

Rewerts survived major life events that made his experiences even more potent.

In 1999, one year after the Louisiana National Airshows were discontinued, he was diagnosed with stage four melanoma and was given a six percent chance of living. “I was supposed to be dead by Christmas in 1999.”

He made it into the 21st century and onward, and believes his volunteerism helped him heal. “I was paying it forward, so to speak,” he said. “I lived long enough to mentor a second group of people.”

The love and care that goes into the Chennault International Airshow doesn’t go unnoticed by the participating pilots who visit Southwest Louisiana.

Despite Chennault’s airshow being considered small, with an average of 20,000 visitors, performers look forward to visiting the area. Rewerts recalled a conversation he had with crew members from the Blue Angels. “They said they’ve never been to a better air show.”

The Thunderbirds agreed, so much so that they traveled to Lake Charles three days early to spend free time in the area. Some of them spent time with Rewerts and the team.

Outside the hangar Board President Bruce Beard’s backyard, Rewerts, his peers and the Thunderbirds had their “Top Gun moment” playing touch football on a grass runway, paying no mind to the Louisiana thunderstorm on the horizon.

“It was the most special moment,” Rewerts mused.