Answer Special Call to Serve - King's College

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ALUMNI NEWS Alumni Profile Joe Guion ’50 As most Americans were commemorating the 40 th anniversary of the first man on the moon in July, Joe Guion ’50 had already celebrated the golden anniversary of his “15 minutes of fame” when he played a major role in a mission that was a vital stepping stone in the Space Race. Guion was typical of the vast majority of students that made up King’s first freshman class in 1946; he had already served a tour in the military and was attending King’s on the G.I. Bill. He entered the U.S. Navy at the age of 17 and spent the final years of World War II as a member of a gun crew on two merchant ships deployed to the European Theater. When he returned home in May 1946 to Northeastern Pennsylvania, he intended to go to the University of Notre Dame for his college studies but it was too late to apply for that fall’s classes. His father had heard about King’s being established by the Congregation of Holy Cross and Joe applied. While earning his degree in economics, Joe was a varsity athlete, a member of the Student Council and Glee Club, and was the first person to don the Leo the Lion mascot uniform. “The entire first class at King’s was infused with the sense of being pioneers,” Guion said. “We didn’t have much in line of facilities, but we felt like we were a part of something that would last.” Guion resumed active duty with the Navy in 1953 and had various assignments, including an emergency deployment in the North Atlantic during the Suez Crisis of 1956. He was given command of his first ship, the USS Kiowa, a year later. On May 28, 1959, Guion was given an assignment he says became the highlight of his 30-year naval career, which included command of two more ships and service in World War II, the Korean War and the Cold War. Guion and his crew were tasked with retrieving an object from the Atlantic Ocean. The object would be landing in the ocean after travelling 1,500 miles in 16 minutes and would have two occupants. The names of the “astronauts” were not Glenn, Armstrong, or even Gagarin, but Able and Baker. The USS Kiowa was responsible for retrieving the capsule that would hopefully contain the first monkeys to survive a trip in space. The American space program had been trying for more than 10 years to successfully send monkeys into space, but all the flights failed for various reasons. Guion knew the key to the monkeys’ survival was an efficient and quick retrieval. Elements did not make that objective easy. The missile was to land in the early morning hours, well before sunrise; the wind was strong and the ocean rough. “As the missile re-entered the atmosphere, it lit up the sky bright enough to read a newspaper on the deck of the ship.” Guion, with Baker, in 1959 The missile landed near its target, but the nose cone portion which contained the monkeys separated. It took an hour for Guion’s crew to spot the nose cone and another hour to bring it aboard the ship. Guion used a large boom to retrieve the nose section. “As soon as I picked it up out of the water, it was flying all over the place. The ship was rolling and the nose cone swung back and forth on the boom. I was just hoping that nobody would get hurt.” Crew members quickly determined that Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, had survived the flight and the re-entry. Guion was invited to accompany the monkeys on their trip, under military escort, to Washington for a news conference. Able and Baker became instant media darlings; they even appeared on the cover of Life magazine. After leaving the Navy in 1973, Guion taught for 10 years at a community college in Virginia Beach. He also became heavily involved as a volunteer in church ministry, successfully using methods he used to build community among his students to form faith communities at a diocesan level. He received the Papal Bene Merenti Medal for service to the Church. Guion has also published two books. His first, Love Songs on the Journey, consisted of poems and personal reflections. “It was part of my grieving process after the death of my dear wife, Magdalen.” His second book, Stolen Votes, published in 2008, was a fictional account of a plot to rig a 1986 U.S. senatorial election. After surviving open heart surgery in April, Guion is “enjoying life” by working at a church in Timonium, Maryland, and writing a book detailing how people can stay motivated and more involved with the Lord. 26 Pride ✦ Fall 2009
Alumni Profile Mike Angley ’81 Mike Angley ’81 admits that before he entered King’s, he developed two passions that he has been fortunate to realize, careers in investigation and, more recently, as a published and award-winning fiction writer. As a student at Wyoming Valley West High School, located only a mile from the King’s campus, Mike developed a life plan that would involve him working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and publishing a novel. While in his final year of study toward earning his degree in criminal justice and psychology, Mike learned that he would not be able to go directly from King’s into the FBI. “Unless you earned either a law or accounting degree, you needed professional investigative experience before the FBI would consider you,” Angley said recently. Mile was able to complete the Air Force ROTC program while at King’s. He was able to use that experience as what he thought would be a means to an end, joining the Air Force as a second lieutenant and possibly earning the practical experience required by the FBI in the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Mike was able to buck the odds. He was only one of four people in the country accepted into OSI right out of college. “I intended to stay for just the required four years, but I enjoyed what I was doing so much, I decided to stick around.” Angley’s eventual 25-year career in the Air Force included earning a master’s degree in national security affairs from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and 13 different assignments throughout the world. While most of his early experiences were in Korea and Japan, he eventually became involved in terrorism and counterintelligence operations in the Middle East. “I was part of OSI at a time when our operational strategy switched from being more defensive in nature (antiterrorism) to more offensive (counterterrorism).” Early in his career, while commanding an OSI unit in northern Japan, Angley conducted an operation that effectively blocked a KGB agent’s efforts to steal critical U.S. technology. Following the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, Angley was dispatched to command all OSI units throughout the Middle East, with responsibility for 23 countries. During his tenure, he and his teams effectively neutralized numerous terrorist threats to U.S. forces in the region, including an imminent threat to senior Department of Defense officials In 1999, he was the Chief of Counterintelligence within the Directorate of Intelligence, U.S. Strategic Command. His office was first runner-up for the prestigious Killian Award, a White House-level honor that annually recognizes the very best intelligence unit in the entire U.S. government. In 2001, Angley was named a National Defense Fellow and adjunct professor of International Relations at Florida International University. It was during this time that he was able to begin pursuing his writing passion. He was able to write a first draft of a novel, but was not able to complete it before he was again off to Asia. In 2004, he was commanding all OSI units in South Korea when he and his teams countered a classified target in Seoul. For his efforts, the President of South Korea presented him with a Presidential Citation and medal, and the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) Commissioner decorated him with the KNPA Medal of Cooperation. It wasn’t until his 2007 retirement as a colonel from the Air Force that Angley was able to return to his writing efforts. Following the adage to “write what you know,” Angley’s first novel, Child Finder, published in June, has as its main character an OSI Special Agent. While Angley’s experiences serve as a background, the novel is definitely fictional. The lead character, Major Patrick O’Donnell, is led by psychic dreams about missing children into a web of government intrigue. During his early OSI experiences, Angley was involved in child-crime cases. “Those cases really affected me. They broke my heart and stayed with me.” “There is definitely some of Mike Angley in Patrick O’Donnell. O’Donnell is proud of his Irish heritage and his Catholic faith. He has a strong moral center and is devoted to his family.” Given Angley’s status as a rookie author, the novel has met with unusual success. The Library Journal placed the book on the Summer Reads List and, just three months after publication, the Military Writers Society of America awarded the book a Silver Medal in the fiction category. The book is the first of three on the character and subject matter. Child Finder: Resurrection is due to be published in December and Child Finder: Revelation will be published in December 2010. More information can be found at www.childfinder.us. Pride ✦ Fall 2009 27
Page 1 and 2: FALL 2009 Deacons- King’s Graduat
Page 3 and 4: Contents Fall 2009 PRESIDENT Rev. T
Page 5 and 6: Kevin Clark Mathematics, football a
Page 7 and 8: Dustin Stark, who received a degree
Page 9 and 10: Deacon Gene Kovatch is shown with s
Page 11 and 12: King’s Earns Place on CCAP/Forbes
Page 13 and 14: Faculty Profile Laurie Ayre Reading
Page 15 and 16: Faces of King’s Jacintha Burke Ad
Page 17 and 18: Matt Easterday named Head Swimming
Page 19 and 20: Knoblauch, Venarchick Achieve Rare
Page 21 and 22: Athletic Schedule Winter 2009-2010
Page 23 and 24: King’s Easter Egg Hunt Despite a
Page 25 and 26: R e u n i o n King’s Annual Reuni
Page 27: Campus Neighbor Celebrates Part of
Page 31 and 32: Joseph Newcomer ’94 was promoted
Page 33 and 34: Alumni Births Congratulations to Jo
Page 35 and 36: Donor Profile Richard A. Alley, M.D

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