Charles Louis Weidinger was born in Circleville, Pickaway County, Ohio, on 19 August 1932, the son of Charles Hill Weidinger and Florence Marie Jackson Weidinger. He started his schooling in 1938 at the old Franklin Street School (now gone), and attended there through the third grade. In 1941, the Weidinger family moved from Circleville, and lived in eight different Ohio areas before returning in 1949. Having spent most of his formative years in the northern Ohio town of Medina, Charles graduated from Circleville High School in June 1950. During his senior year on 19 February 1950, he joined the Ohio Air National Guard at Lockbourne AFB. On release from an active duty recall during the Korean Conflict in 1952, he completed the US Air Force Aviation Cadet pilot training course in the Class of 1954-I, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on 12 May 1954.
Following completion of combat crew training in August 1954, he returned to Lockbourne AFB, and was a combat-ready pilot with the 166th Tactical Fighter Squadron until January 1972, advancing to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. On 9 September 1955, he married Miss Dorothy Lee Lampson, a former student at Circleville High School, established a family residence in Columbus, attended The Ohio State University, and was employed for eleven years with North American Aviation and North American-Rockwell Corporation.
A daughter, Bethanne, was born on 8 August 1962, less than a month following Charles' return home from a recall to active duty during the Berlin Wall Crisis, where he spent nearly a year at Etain AB, France. In 1969, he resigned his position with Rockwell, and joined the Ohio Air National Guard contingent as a full-time technician. In January 1972, he volunteered for a tour of active duty with the National Guard Bureau. Following that tour, he graduated from the US Air Force Air War College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, and spent consecutive tours of duty at various levels representing the Air National Guard Component.
Having advanced to full Colonel in 1979, he spent his final tour of active duty as ANG Advisor to the Air Force Secretariat. His first wife Dottie passed away in 1981. Charles subsequently remarried an old school friend, Jo Ellen Good Loy, a member of the Circleville Class of 1951. Charles and Jo moved back to Columbus from Alexandria, Virginia in 1988. Retired from both the Air Force and Rockwell Corporation, he now drives part-time for Project Mainstream, a service owned by the Laidlaw Corporation, in contract with the Central Ohio Transit Authority, providing door-to-door transportation services for the disabled of Franklin County. Following the tragic death of his daughter, Bethanne Slane in 1995, he was reinstated as a member of the church of his youth, Trinity Lutheran Church in Circleville.
Charles, whose family nickname has always been Jack, resides in Columbus with his wife Jo and his disabled stepson, Shane Loy. Since 1993, he has avidly pursued his family genealogy, and is a member of both the Pickaway and Ross County Historical/Genealogical Societies.
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Colonel and Mrs. Charles Weidinger (1985)
