NCO Academy inactivates Published May 30, 2008 By Tech. Sgt. Carissa Lee 17th Training Wing Public Affairs GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- After graduating more than 15,000 students trained to be professional, war-fighting Airmen who can lead and manage Air Force units in the employment of air and space power, the Goodfellow Noncommissioned Officer Academy is now a part of the Air Force's heritage in providing professional military education to technical sergeants. An inactivation ceremony was held Wednesday at the Academy to officially "retire" the school. Following a video presentation highlighting the history of the Academy, Chief Master Sgt. Edy Agee, the school's last commandant, and Col. Thomas Klincar, commander of the College for Enlisted Professional Education, performed the furling of the flag, a ceremony to retire an organization's flag. Several former commandants and family members of commandants of the academy attended the ceremony, including Mrs. Colleen Heath, the widow of Chief Master Sgt. James Heath, whom Heath Hall was named after. "He would have been incredibly proud," Mrs. Heath said. "He was notified that the school would be named after him just one week before he passed away," she recalled with great emotion. "It was one of his prouder moments. He loved the Air Force so much..." The decision to close the academy, along with three others in the United States, will consolidate training by downsizing the remaining number of academies to four. The remaining academies are located at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., Gunter Annex, Ala., Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and McGhee-Tyson Air National Guard Base in Alcoa, Tenn. Air University will continue to provide the highest quality of professional military education in a more efficient manner and will enable the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's priorities, according to Col. Klincar. The colonel said the closures will allow the military to renovate and modernize the remaining NCO Academies. Furthermore, this endeavor will establish centers similar to the Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy model, which provides training at a central location for all senior NCOs. More than 300 classes of technical sergeants have passed through the doors of Goodfellow's Academy. Each Airman graduated after studying a curriculum of the Profession of Arms, Leadership and Communication Skills. The lessons in these curriculum areas are distributed throughout the four graduate attributes--military professional, combat leader, unit manager and managerial communicator. Upon graduation, the Community College of the Air Force grants 11 semester hours to each graduate for course completion. Following the inactivation ceremony, one final retreat ceremony was held , to officially retire and encase the Goodfellow NCO Academy flag. Chief Agee spoke of the closure of her school when she said "It's bittersweet today...but while I am saddened about the closure of the school, I am excited; excited about what the future holds for enlisted professional military education. It will absolutely continue for our NCOs--it will just be somewhere else now."
