By Mary O’KEEFE

As the second semester begins at Crescenta Valley High School, the new mentor/instructor for JROTC has a lot to get used to: his new job, California and having the time of his life. 

Major Michael Sharpe served in the U.S. Air Force for 25 years and six months. He served several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq; altogether 12 deployments that also included stations in Alaska and Florida. His wife had accepted a job in California, so they moved from Oklahoma and, shortly after they arrived, Maj. Sharpe found he was hired as the new leader for the CVHS JROTC program. 

Sharpe had been interviewed for the job by school administration and Lt. Col. David Worley, who had led JROTC for 14 years before retiring last year.  

“We actually saw [Worley] a little while ago when we were at the Ronald Reagan Library,” Sharpe said. 

The cadets had taken a field trip to the situation room at the library and Worley stopped by.

“The kids were excited to see him,” he said. 

With respect for what Worley had done in the past, Sharpe is moving forward, putting his own spin on the program. 

“The [students] are surprised to see me make a joke. Lt. Col. Worley may have been a little more stern,” he said. “It surprises the students when I take a joke they made and turn it back on them.”

There are a few more changes Sharpe has brought, or is planning to bring, to the program. He wants to create a program that will allow the students to take flight ground school at CVHS as part of JROTC.

“We are working on it,” Sharpe said. “We are meeting next week with the district.”

His plan is to create the ground school as an honors program that will be offered to juniors and seniors. Presently, he is going back and forth between the Glendale School District and the U.S. Air Force. 

“The ground school program I took was about a six-week course, every night for three to four hours,” Sharpe said. “The [class] teaches all the basics of aeronautics from why planes fly to how they navigate.”

At the end of the ground school program, the kids will test with the FAA and receive a certificate. When they complete ground school, they will be ready for private pilot training. The students, if Sharpe has his way, will then be able to wear flight suits instead of their JRTOC uniforms. 

Sharpe conducted a poll of the students and found they were excited about the possibility of ground school. If plans were to move forward, the class would be primarily for juniors and seniors, but there would be some part of the program designed for freshmen and sophomores.

Sharpe said he was taken aback by one thing.

“The only thing that surprised me [about the job] is I didn’t know I was going to like it as much as I do,” he said. “The kids here are awesome, they are amazing …This is the greatest job I have ever had.”