ROTC Commander To Retire From U.S. Air Force Sept. 6
Twenty-one years ago, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bowles, who served as commander of Baylor University ROTC from 2001 to August 2004, received his second lieutenant bars in Barfield Drawing Room on the Baylor University campus. At 1 p.m. Monday, Sept. 6, he will come full circle when he retires from the U.S. Air Force in that same room.
In the formal military ceremony that will be filled with nostalgia, retired Air Force Col. Dyek Boles, who commissioned Bowles, will serve as guest speaker. Additionally, a number of certificates of appreciation and recognition will be given to Bowles and his wife, Dawn, for their 21 years of service, and he will be presented a Meritorious Service Medal for his work at Baylor. Also, Baylor cadets will sing the National Anthem and will perform a flag-folding ceremony and present the flag to Bowles.
A Dallas native, Bowles received his bachelor's degree from Baylor in 1983 and an MBA from California State University in 1992. His varied Air Force career included tours as a television writer/director at Carswell AFB, Commander of the 1363rd Audiovisual Squadron in Korea, Chief of Programs at headquarters of the Aerospace Audiovisual Service and Air Combat Camera Service, and Chief of the advertising section at headquarters of the Air Force Recruiting Service at Randolph AFB.
His major awards include a Meritorious Service Medal (3 oak leaf clusters), an Air Force Commendation Medal (1 oak leaf cluster), an Air Force Achievement Medal and an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, to name a few. He also received the Air Force Association Hoyt S. Vandenberg Award for Aerospace Education in 1997 and was named Texas Air Force Association Recruiting Officer of the Year in 1998. Under Bowles command, Baylor's ROTC was selected as the top ROTC in the Southwest region.
Formed in 1948, one year after the creation of the Air Force as a separate military branch, Baylor's program is one of the nation's oldest Air Force ROTC units.