Flying high, taking the plunge
By MICHAEL HARVILLA, special to The Times LeaderTAPPAN LAKE - Love was in the air, literally, on Dec. 30 in Harrison County as Joshua Bumgardner of Cadiz and Jessica Gates of Richmond took their romance to new heights.
With the help of pilot Dinny Walford of the Ohio Valley Flight Academy and a Piper Cherokee 140, Bumgardner proposed to Gates, while soaring over his grandfather's farm near Tappan Lake.
The couple was picked up by Walford at the Harrison County Airport on that Tuesday at about 10 a.m. Bumgardner said, "I picked that day because it was our six-month anniversary."
Bumgardner said that he talked to Gates' father on Dec. 23 to get his permission.
Armed with a road map of Harrison County so that he could give Walford directions and a carefully concealed engagement ring, the entourage flew to a latitude and longitude of approximately 40 degrees and 16 minutes north and 81 degrees and 11 minutes west to fly over the farm belonging to his grandparents, Bob and Miriam Addy, where he had cut into a field, "Will U Marry Me."
Gates responded at 1,000 feet and 110 miles per hour by saying "Yes."
Bumgardner said he and Gates, sergeants in the National Guard's 1485 Transportation Co., met while going to Grayling, Mich., earlier in the year for training.
"We were in a Humvee, driving for 16 hours to training camp. We talked to each other for about three weeks and started dating on June 30," Bumgardner noted. He is a mechanic, and she is a driver for the transportation company.
Both have served on active duty in Iraq. Bumgardner served a 12-month deployment in Iraq, while Gates served for 16 months in Iraq, but they were there at different times.
"I had cut 'I love you' in the field in July while brush hogging the field. We walked up a hill overlooking the field so she could see it." Bumgardner said that this was the first time he told her he loved her.
While flying over the farm, he pointed out the field and placed an engagement ring on her finger. After landing at the airport, Bumgardner got down on one knee near one of the hangars and said, 'I guess I had better do this right."
The answer was the same, both in the air and on the ground. A beaming Gates said she was "totally surprised." She is employed at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Richmond, while Bumgardner works at Timken Roller Bearing in New Philadelphia.
Gates attends Colonial Baptist Church in Wintersville, but the couple has yet to set a date for their wedding.
