Annandale
Airfield, Ken-Toby Flying Service
Presentation to
the Annandale History Club
March 6,
2017
Garry Elfstrand
Not many people remember that there was an airfield in
Annandale. It was located on the
W.D. “Dudley” Tobin farm in Section 29, Corinna Township, where David Ferrell
and Marvin Smith opened Eastview Mobile Home Park in 1973.
Dudley Tobin owned and operated the Annandale Pool Hall
with his father Jim in the early 1930s.
They also operated Toby’s Liquor Store in Annandale in the late 1930s,
later known as Arney’s Bar, JJ’s for a very long time, and is now Annandale
Roadhouse.
Dudley Tobin (1909-1994) bought a farm in Annandale in
1941, 80 acres at first and then another 80 acres.
He operated an airport, hangar and landing strip on the farm from 1946 to
1958. The airport operations were
managed by Dudley Tobin and Kenny Bullock.
Dudley was an experienced business manager having successfully operated a
saloon for 11 years. Kenny Bullock,
a 1939 Annandale grad, learned to fly while a student at St Cloud Teachers
College before he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1941 during World War II.
He graduated pilot school in January
1944 and was a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter pilot.
He flew 47 combat missions in the European Theatre.
The first plane at the Annandale airfield was a Taylor
T-Craft monoplane bought in 1946 for $2,000.
Later a J-3 Piper Cub was purchased.
Standard airport support was available including fuel, mechanical
service, hangar and tie-down space.
Flight lessons and training, crop dusting, and cargo carrier services were
provided by Kenny Bullock. Kenny
Bullock (1921-2002) moved to Richmond, Virginia, to start a cargo air service
and teach flying at Parnell Field.
He later moved to Alexandria, Virginia, but kept his ties with Annandale.
Annandale Advocate, April 18, 1946:
“The Ken-Toby Air Service has established that its use is of benefit
to local farmers.
A local farmer broke a gear in his tractor last Friday, but no
replacement parts were to be found in the area.
The farmer went to Howard Lake, but no parts were available there either
until one was located in Monticello.
To drive from Monticello to Howard Lake would have taken at least two or
three hours, but Kenny Bullock was contacted and told where to drop the part,
and within less than an hour the mission was accomplished”
Annandale Advocate, May 9, 1946:
“Kenny Bullock and Dud Tobin, proprietors of the Kentoby Flying Service, took
part in a ‘breakfast flight’ in Albert Lea on Sunday morning.
The pre-dawn flight is a race to see which plane will arrive at a
designated airport first. Out of a
field of 49, the local men arrived second.
The first-place pilot was flying a larger and faster ship.
The two left here in their cub at 4:40 a.m. and arrived at 6 a.m. after
flying 110 air miles. The citizens
of Albert Lea had the opportunity of seeing the 49 planes fly in mass formation
over the city.”
Annandale Advocate, June 6, 1946:
“In keeping with the times, local people
are becoming more and more
‘air-minded’ and with the air strip so nearby, aviation is meeting with
encouragement. W.D. Tobin was among
the first local men to take flying lessons, and it is he who has provided the
airport a short distance east of Annandale.
Tobin is one-half of the Kentoby Air Service, along with partner Kenneth
Bullock, a former Army air pilot.”
Annandale Advocate, June 20, 1946:
W.D. Tobin, member of the Kentoby Flying Service, moved some buildings
from the east end of his farm to the edge of the landing field.
They will be converted into an office and a hangar.
Mr. Tobin says that they are making arrangements to obtain a government
contract for training veterans to secure private licenses.
There was a five-member club, the Annandale Flying Club,
that was made up of Doc Bendix, Cliff Juetten, Wendell Ponsford, Norman J.
Planer and Dudley Tobin. According
to Norm’s son, Norman G., membership later dropped to three members, Doc Bendix,
Norm Planer and Wendell Ponsford.
Wendell didn’t fly.
Ralph Akins, former Annandale resident, kept his plane in a
hangar there. Grace Tobin Samuelson
said that Ralph was a fixture at the airfield spending a lot of time there with
the guys and helping out with routine chores.
Ralph had also been a pilot in World War II.
(Grace Tobin Samuelson provided information and Norm Planer
provided a picture of his dad by the airplane. Information from Annandale
Advocate articles was added.)
Notes by Annandale History Club Secretary
Kenneth Bullock, 81, of
Alexandria Va., died of cardiac
arrest,
Friday, November 15, 2002, at Alexandria Hospital, Va.
Mass of the Ressurrection as
performed with Fr. John Riley and Fr. Weyem officiating, at St. Louis Catholic
Church. He was buried at Mount Comfort Cemetery in Alexandria, Va. On November
22. His sister Marie from Annandale attended the funeral, as did his sister
Carol of Fridley. Kevin Johnson (formerly of Annandale, ow of Brooklyn Center),
Marie’s son and Ken’s nephew sang. Ken’s nephew Mark Johnson, of Annandale, also
attended the funeral.
Survivors include his daughter,
Mondie Gallagher of Chantilly, Va., and his son, Roger Bullock of Alexandria,
Va., six grandchildren, and his sisters Marie Johnson of Annandale, and Carol
Mack of Fridley.
Ken’s wife, Dana Bullock, preceded
him in death in May 2000.
Born in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Mr. Bullock was raised in the town of Annandale, in Wright
County, Minnesota, where his family acquired the family farm under the Homestead
Act. He played drums in the Annandale High’s School Band starting in the fourth
grade, and graduated in 1939. He studied mathematics and physics at St. Cloud
Teacher’s College and learned to fly at the local Whitney Memorial Airport. He
entered the Army Air Corps in 1941 and served in World War II, as a P-47
Thunderbolt Fighter Pilot with the 9th
Air Force, 362d Fighter Group-378th
Fighter Squadron, and as a test pilot as Wright-Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio.
He flew 47 combat missions in the European Theater. Ken’s forward air strike
exploits over Germany were filmed in color in response to General Hap Arnold’s
order that the closing months of the air war over Europe be documented. In May,
2001, Ken was featured with three other P-47 pilots in the History Channel
special: “Thunderbolts: Conquest of the Reich” produced by Larry Bond of Paris,
France. Much of the film featured actual footage of Ken’s dog fighting and
strafing as the American forces supported General George S. Patton’s military
crossing of the Rhine River for the first time since Napolean. Ken was
interviewed for the program and provided narration in the film. Following the
war, Mr. Bullock returned to Annandale to teach flying, provide crop dusting and
cargo carrier services, and to play piano in the “Jive Bombers” music group. A
year later he relocated to Richmond, Virginia, to start a cargo air service with
a friend and to teach flying at Parnell Field. There he met and married his late
wife, Dana. They moved to Alexandria, Va. In 1954 where they raised two
children. He was Branch Manager of Seaboard Finance Company (later Avco
Financial Services” and Liberty Loan Corporation on King Street. He continued to
fly during the 1950s and into the 1960s. In early 70s, Ken transitioned to a
Marketing Manager position with BAP-GEON Imported Car Parts in Merrifield, Va.,
a British based company. He designed and developed their marketing information
systems and was later employed in a similar capacity with RTM Distributors in
Chantilly, Va.
Norman Planer with
his airplane on skis at