Cape Central holds final AFJROTC ceremony before program's closure

Cape Central High School AFJROTC instructor Col. Michael Goodin, left, presents the Military Officer Association of America Award to junior cadet Kenneth Talley during the program's final awards ceremony Friday, April 26, at Kinder Performance Hall in Cape Girardeau.

Alyssa Lunsford ~ alunsford@semissourian.com

Cape Central High School’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFJROTC) program held its final awards ceremony Friday, April 26, before the program’s closure at the end of the semester.

The awards ceremony proved to be more poignant than usual for the program’s instructor, Col. Michael Goodin, who served in several roles with the Air Force throughout his 25-year career before retiring in 2016.

“The ceremony is always bittersweet because you’re seeing our seniors for the last time before they go out into the world. You’re proud of them for all their accomplishments, as well as the other cadets, but you’re always building toward the next year,” Goodin said. “This one being the final year, it was definitely a little bit more emotional.”

In a surprise turn of events, Goodin said the senior cadets hijacked the ceremony to present him with a gift. Unbeknownst to them, he had a very similar gift for each of his cadets.

“They had a display case, a display board, handcrafted for me,” Goodin said. “In the military, we use these things called challenge coins. They’re coins that are specifically identifiable for different military units, bases or individuals. They had all gone out and got me a bunch of challenge coins to put in this display case. They surprised me with that, but I had separately bought each one of them a challenge coin to give out. It all worked out to be a really neat transaction between us all.”

The program’s closure stems from the school’s inability to find a second instructor and enroll the required number of cadets, as both are requirements of the Air Force and Congress. The minimum number of cadets required to keep the program open is 10% of a school’s student population or 100 students, whichever is lower.

Goodin — who helped institute the program in 2018 following his Air Force retirement — said the program was put on probation and was subject to possible closure over the summer. As a result, the school district decided to preemptively shut it down, and Goodin announced his retirement in a letter to cadets and parents in early March.

“We’re on double probation and the Air Force was pushing forward with the process to close, but the final determination was not quite there yet,” Goodin said. “They would have made that decision this summer, which doesn’t necessarily line up with the school district’s need to have a clear and established path to set up for the next school year. At that point, I wanted to help the school move on in terms of their planning for the future. It did not look likely that we were going to stay open. We were going to close down either at the end of this year or into next year.

“I have some other job opportunities in the defense contracting world, so I’m going to move toward that direction. This allows the school to move on to set up other programs, to hire other instructors to fill the vacancies and to kind of strategize on how to move forward.”

According to Goodin, finding a second instructor proved to be a challenge because the region is “not an Air Force-centric location.”

“We’re not near an Air Force Base. Scott Air Force Base is the nearest base to us, and that’s two hours away. We don’t have an Air National Guard Base. We don’t have an Air Force Reserve unit or anything anywhere nearby,” Goodin said. “I’m from this area, and I was in the Air Force, so, naturally, I wanted to start an Air Force JROTC program but really didn’t look at the sustainability of it in the out years. There’s a large Marine presence here. There’s a large Army presence here, and they’re just not a lot of Air Force veterans. There are some, but in terms of proportionality, there’s not as many.”

Cape Girardeau Public Schools superintendent Dr. Howard Benyon expressed his appreciation for Goodin and the AFJROTC program.

“It’s been a pleasure to witness the number of opportunities that have been afforded to our students through the Air Force JROTC program and under Col. Goodin’s guidance,” Benyon said. “It is our hope that cadets consider the multitude of clubs and organizations that remain available at Cape Central and continue to grow through participation in those programs. I’d like to thank Col. Goodin for his service to our country and community. Learning under a colonel is not an opportunity that comes along every day, and we are grateful for the time that he has spent molding young people at CHS into a stronger version of themselves.”

Goodin echoed Benyon in wanting his cadets to consider other clubs at Cape Central, as well as the Civil Air Patrol, which is an alternative Air Force cadet program for youth aged 12-18.

“(The Civil Air Patrol meets) once a week, but they also do some summer camps and there are different opportunities for them,” Goodin said. “They focus on leadership development, learn about aerospace science, they have a search and rescue mission that the kids can get involved in and they can also achieve different awards. Similar to JROTC, if someone does want to enlist in the military, there are some advanced promotions available through Civil Air Patrol, there are some scholarships and there are academy nomination avenues. There are a lot of great similarities to JROTC and a lot of great opportunities for these cadets to move forward.”

Despite his disappointment in the program’s closure, Goodin said he would always be around for his former cadets should they ever need his help or guidance.

“It’s been my privilege and honor to teach the kids through this program,” Goodin said. “A lot of them have success written on their forehead as they move forward. I’m really excited to see what avenues, career paths and choices some of them make in the future. … I will always be here. We’re staying in the local area for at least the near term, and if they want mentorship or need someone to kick them in the butt, I’m here to do that for them.”