WWW.THELEAVEN.COM | NEWSPAPER OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF KANSAS CITY IN KANSAS | VOL. 34, NO. 2 JULY 27, 2012
Photo courtesy of the Diederich family
Lieutenant Matt Diederich, a 1999 graduate of Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park, directed the July 9 Navy flyover of the State Farm Home Run Derby.
Miege grad at helm of All-Star flyover calls thinking. “If it’s in my power, I’m going to make it happen. There’s no way I’m going to miss that.” The Navy flyover took place before the Home Run Derby on July 9. But it wasn’t the hometown boy in the cockpit. Instead, from the ground, Diederich directed two pilots of Squadron VFA 122 “Flying Eagles” flying F/A18 Super Hornets in a 345 mile-per-hour pass over the stadium at 1,000 feet. The flyby took Diederich six months to plan — and lasted four seconds.
‘Some kids dream big,’ says former chaplain of aviator By Joe Bollig Leaven staff
K
ANSAS CITY, Kan. — “Top Gun” seized the adolescent imaginations of a whole generation of boys with its screaming F14A Tomcat fighter planes and their aerial dance of death over the seething sea. As did Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, aka Tom Cruise, who — with an ego as large as an aircraft carrier — swaggered across the big screen and into the heart of luscious civilian instructor “Charlie” Blackwood, aka Kelly McGillis. The memory gives a chuckle to Lt. Matt Diederich, a 1999 graduate of Bishop Miege High School in Roland Park — and a teenage boy at the time “Top Gun” came out in 1986. In all his time as a naval aviator, Diederich has never seen a gorgeous lady civilian contractor seeking torrid
From the family’s heart
Photo by Chris Vleisides/Kansas City Royals
Two members of Squadron VFA 122, the “Flying Eagles,” bring their F/A-18 Super Hornets in for a 1000-foot pass over Kauffman Stadium at 345 miles per hour. romance with a fighter jock. Regrettably. He brushed close to his 15 minutes of fame, however, at the State Farm Home Run Derby and Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game,
July 9 and 10 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. “When it was announced last spring that the All-Star Game was going to be in Kansas City, I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to be in the
States, flying F-18s,” said Diederich. “I’m going to immediately start working to make a flyby happen — in my hometown, with the Navy’s frontline fighter jet,’” he re-
Naval aviators are created, not born, and the formation of Diederich began in the heart of his family. He is one of the six children of Paul and Sherry Diederich, members of St. Agnes Parish in Roeland Park. The Diederichs gave their children a solid Midwestern and Catholic upbringing. The children attended St. Agnes School and then Bishop Miege High School. See “TEACHERS” on page 2