Gorham family presents Piper Cub to Piper Aviation Museum

LOCK HAVEN, PA – Family of the late Ray Gorham gathered Sunday at the Piper Aviation Museum in Lock Haven to pay tribute to a wonderful husband, father, grand- and great-grandfather, uncle and friend, donating one of Ray’s favorite airplanes, a 1946 J-3 Piper Cub he had affectionately named “Happy Days” to the Museum. He had purchased the plane in 2007. It had been manufactured at the Lock Haven Piper plant in 1946. Piper Aviation Museum President Ron Dremel thanked the Gorham family for their generous donation, saying he had known Ray for about 25 years and thought of him as a mentor, especially when Dremel and his son were themselves learning to fly.

A master mechanic, Ray Gorham had worked at Don Spangler Ford and PennDOT in Lock Haven, and then at the Piper Memorial Airport for many years later in his life. He was well-known at the Sentimental Journey Fly-Ins where he operated the airplane fuel truck for the City of Lock Haven, and he was a fixture at the Sentimental Journey breakfast fundraisers, where he talked and joked with everyone coming through the food line as he handed out breakfast sausage.

During brief remarks Sunday at the museum, a storm flared up, shaking the overhead doors in the hanger section of the museum and causing a clamor that momentarily drowned out the speakers. When Museum President Dremel apologized for the noise, many in the Gorham family laughed and said, “That’s him – that’s Pappy – he’s here with us today!”