FAIRBORN — Col. (ret.) Dan Kirkpatrick and Lori Sue Luckner have been crowned the 2018 Sweet Corn Festival King and Queen.
Kirkpatrick is a registered nurse with more than 42-years’ experience working in mental health, disaster preparedness, and nursing and healthcare leadership positions. Twenty-eight of those years were spent in the United States Air Force in a variety of mental health and leadership positions, including staff nurse positions, nurse manager positions, chief nurse positions at four different Air Force Hospitals, three medical operations squadron commander positions and a hospital commander position at a deployed location in a combat zone. Kirkpatrick retired in 2007 from the Air Force at the rank of colonel.
Following his military service, he taught full-time at Wright State University for the College of Nursing and Health teaching mental health and disaster preparedness and for the Boonshoft School of Medicine teaching disaster preparedness at Calamityville in Fairborn. After retiring from teaching full-time from Wright State University, Kirkpatrick still teaches disaster preparedness part-time for the College of Nursing and Health and the Wright State Research Institute.
He has lived all over the United States and in Japan both as a child and in the military and spent time in the Micronesian Islands in the Peace Corps. Kirkpatrick is extensively involved in a number of civic groups and programs in the Miami Valley and the state of Ohio, including the past president of the Ohio Nurses Association. He recently served as a Fairborn City councilman for four years and four years as the mayor of Fairborn. He is currently the president of the Tecumseh Council, Boy Scouts of America; chairman of the Fairborn Sister City Program; co-chairman of the Fairborn Military Veterans Memorial Project Committee; and was recently selected as the education committee chairman for the American Veterans Heritage Center at the Dayton Veteran’s Association.
Kirkpatrick has been married to Norma for 37 years. They have three children, two daughters, Heather who lives in Tennessee, and Katie who lives in Fairborn, and one son Matt who lives in Fairborn. He has five grandchildren.
Lori Sue Luckner has been active in the Fairborn community for more than 25 years. She works as an administrative assistant at Sochi Home Health Agency and was at Wright State before that for 17 years.
Luckner earned a bachelor’s degree in communications, associate’s in business administration, and a minor in public relations from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. She was involved with the university’s radio station, publicity committee co-leader for homecoming, and was student assistant editor for the alumni magazine.
After graduating from Taylor, she became active in the Fairborn Sweet Corn Festival. This is her 26 festival. Luckner has been publicity chairman, secretary and chairman for eight years, keeps the website and Facebook page updated and wherever else help is needed. She has also been a corn holder for the corn-eating contest for several years.
She has been active in many other organizations including the Fairborn Art Association as corresponding secretary, gallery coordinator and past president; Operation Fairborn Cares; Downtown Fairborn Committee; and helped start the Fairborn Heritage Days Festival. Luckner is very active in Aero Chapter #536, Order of the Eastern Stars as secretary for 13 years, past matron, page to a district officer, charities director for one year and an assistant for three years, a fundraising committee member for a frand officer of the state of Ohio, and was a grand representative of Colorado in Ohio.
Luckner has been active on committees in Riverside, where she resides. She has been on Multi-Modal Committee, Parks and Recreation Board, and the Charter Review Committee. She was also active on several committees at Wright State University including the Classified Staff Advisory Committee, Print Management Committee, and she worked on rewriting the by-laws and classified staff handbook.
Lori has been married to her husband Mike for almost 17 years. She has two step-children, Chris and Jennifer, and has three grandsons and several foster grandsons.
The Sweet Corn Festival will be held 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18 and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19, 2018 at Community Park, 691 E. Dayton-Yellow Springs Road.
