OA is You: Fred Weaver

Owego Apalachin Schools rely on Fred Weaver to keep the new Owego Elementary School (OES) in fine working order, with a fresh spit-shine. But there was a time when Fred Weaver was helping propel F-14 fighter planes dart off the end of aircraft carriers somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.

“I was a lot younger then,” he said, standing alongside the district’s new elementary school, looking out at his old pick-up truck. The 1977 Candor High graduate spent 10 years in the United States Navy; some of that time in Oceana, Virginia. Some of it was on a carrier, working as a jet plane mechanic.

“I worked on power plants and fuel systems,” he said.

Fred did two tours of duty in the Mediterranean, and, “I’ve been all over Europe twice,” he said. “About the only place I didn’t go was Germany.”

He belongs to the local VFW, too.

“I was on a carrier when we became involved in the Libyan conflict in the early 1980s,” he said. “Then I was also involved in the Lebanon War, a year or so later. I was on the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower. We called it Ike. Now it’s old, like me.”

When not working as the OES day custodian, Fred’s attention these days is on his 1-year-old grandson, but also on his other baby, the 1969 Ford F-100 Ranger parked nearly daily on the back side of the Owego Free Academy (OFA) athletics island.

The Ford has a fresh Crate 390 engine (it came out of the factory with a 360, he said) and despite the gray primer and patina, the vehicle his wife calls “The Beast” will one day be green.

“We thought we were going to paint it Grabber Green, but then my wife saw that color on a Mustang and she didn’t care for it at all,” Fred said. “So for now, we’re thinking it will be Moss Green. Make it look like the beast that it is.”

Fred Weaver transferred to become the custodian at the new OES when it came online last winter. He’d been custodian at Owego Free Academy, and before that, at Apalachin Elementary. He’s been with OA Schools heading toward nine years now, he said. Before that, he worked as a roofer for Scott Quick Construction of Candor.

But something about that old pickup truck with the gigantic engine out in that parking lot brings Fred back to his time in the Navy.

“It was a choice I made to serve, and I’m so glad I did,” he said. “Most exciting time of my life. Watching a fighter go from a complete standstill, to shooting off a carrier in three seconds flat.”

He paused and looked over at the F-100 Ranger sitting there, quiet.

“And kids back home thought they had hot rods,” he said, laughing. “They should have felt the power of those jets.”