This month, we are honored to shine the Sponsor Spotlight on Dan & Tami Scace. Dan and Tami are a constant presence at our concerts, typically found right in the front row. Beyond their financial support, they consistently arrive early and stay late to assist with room setup and teardown.
Their dedication to the Legion extends well beyond the Listening Room; Dan completed his term as Commander of our Post On June 30 and will resume his role as President of the Post 119 Charitable Foundation on July 1. Tami is beginning her year as President of the Ladies Auxiliary and is also on the Charitable Foundation Board of Trustees.
Their story is a snapshot of the life of a career military family. Nobody could tell it any better than Dan himself, except maybe Tami! Here it is.
“Where to start…
– Dan Scace
Tami and I met when I was a cadet at USAFA and she was a student at CC (That’s The Colorado College). Our first date was to Boulder’s Pow Wow Rodeo, a thing from the past when Boulder was a different place. I was a buffoon even then because I forgot my wallet and had to borrow money from her to take her out! The good news was this lead to at least one more date to pay her back.
I robbed the cradle and, after a few fits and starts on my part, we married after my graduation and her junior year on June 10, 1972, in Boulder, in a non-military ceremony and started our life in the military together. Our first assignment was to pilot training in Lubbock, Tx, where she finished her degree at Texas Tech, earning degrees from both CC and Tech! From there we journeyed to Florida and RAF Lakenheath, England. It was an opportunity for her to enhance her love of horses and riding, and she blossomed, working away at a local horse farm earning her British Horse Society Horse Master Certificate (you remember Annette Funicello in the movie “The Horsemasters”?) and her Assistant Instructor Certificate. She jumped over fences and swirled around the dressage arena and, in a sense, had the time of her life. I just went to work each day, got to fly the F-4 Phantom a bit, and sat on a lot of alert.
We returned from England, did a stint at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Fl and separated from the AF. I went to work for Westinghouse in Idaho Falls Idaho at a Navy Nuclear Prototype, where I became a Nuclear Plant Engineer teaching Navy kids how to operate a nuc plant. It was a good job for a guy with an engineering degree and training experience, but I soon discovered the Navy didn’t do things the same was as the Air Force! We bought our first ranch there and thought it would be a life long place, but the flying bug had bitten me and we reluctantly moved to CT for work in the commercial nuclear industry so I could join the ANG and fly the A-10 Warthog. It was a bad feeling to be torn away from a place we loved, but my career blossomed and so did Tami’s as she became the Director of the Navy – Marine Corps Relief Society at the Sub-Base New London. She loved serving the Sailors and Marines, along with the occasional Soldiers and Airmen that showed up. But it wasn’t just there that we served. She became very involved in Family Support programs as I went through various levels of command, and together, I think, we build a strong support network.
A good example of this was on 9-11-2001. I was flying out of Al Jabber Air Base, Kuwait enforcing the UN imposed no-fly zone in Southern Iraq when the towers were hit. The world was chaotic. It was virtually impossible to talk via phone from Kuwait, but thank God for this sorta new thing called email. We in Kuwait were hunkered down, and worried about everyone back in Ct, and they were all worried about us in the desert. The deployment naturally got extended and families back home were at a loss at times dealing with life without the parent, spouse or caregiver. Everyone’s situation was different, but Tami and her family support network served all of the families well. She gave guidance on how to fix a running toilet and built activities and counseling for children, wondering when mommy or daddy were coming home, from dedicated professionals recruited from Yale. It was a great example of working together for community support.
Those same feelings are with us today as we share our time supporting Post 119. It’s our local way to serve Veterans and our community. We love and support all of the ways we do that here, and the Listening at the Legion program is a blessing! We truly thank all those that created it and now sustain it, and are grateful for the way it helps sustain Legion operations.”
Dan, we are fortunate to have you and Tami in our community. Thank you for what you’ve done for our Country, and for what you two do in our little town.
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