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August 11, 2009

WELLBORN NEWS

Anonymous The Suwannee Democrat Tue Aug 11, 2009, 08:05 AM EDT

By Ruth Ford

Charles "Ray" Rodehaver is a mild mannered, easygoing man. He is a very young 82 years of age and has led a most interesting life. When he was 16 years old, he left the old farm place in Guysville, Ohio, where he had worked during his young life to go to work apprenticing to be a welder in "far off" Columbus, Ohio. From there, at age 18, he went into the Army and served two and a half years. After his discharge from the Army, he moved on to laying track for the B&O;, the Pennsylvania, and the Columbus railroads.

In 1950 he was hired by North American Aviation, and here his first job as a welder paid off big time. Ray was put on projects such as the F86, which was a fighter plane built for the Korean War. After that, came the FJ3, the FJ4 and the experimental XB-70, which flew three times faster than the speed of sound. Unfortunately for America, the XB-70, on a test flight in the Mohave Desert was being photographed in flight, and the airplane with the photographer edged too close, hit the XB-70's gas tank, and that was the end of America's answer to the best and fastest plane in the world.

By the sixties, America was rushing to reach the moon. And, again, Ray was given the high security job of helping prepare the capsule for the lunar landing module that the astronauts would be in during the trip to the moon. All in all, he completed six of these capsules for the first trip, training and future trips.

In April of 1979, Ray "retired" and moved to Lake Worth. He and his son started remodeling houses in their spare time. He soon was approached by Rollyson Aluminum to see if he would install windows and patio doors in some of their condominium projects. He couldn't say no, and was soon installing windows and doors in buildings many stories high from Miami to Melbourne. In one project alone he installed 1,700 patio doors.

Ray moved to the Wellborn area in 1989 and is still "retired." Here he works on his little farm and his vehicles: a 1978 Chevrolet, a 1977 Dodge van camper, and his favorite, a 1971 Plymouth. All look almost new, are completely trustworthy --- and Ray says they all are METAL. No plastic bumpers or aluminum foil bodies on his vehicles!