2025 Folds of Honor Patriots Gala
ASM Model Display at the 2025 Folds of Honor Patriot Dinner
By Mike Blohm
ASM put on a tremendous model display at the 2025 Folds of Honor 10th Annual Patriot Dinner. The event took place on Saturday, September 6th at the Isleta Resort and Casino’s Convention Center in south Albuquerque. The display went very well and was likely the second largest display we have ever conducted – with about 135 models – topped only by the 2014 Albuquerque Comic Expo sci-fi display. This was ASM’s sixth display at a Folds of Honor (FoH) event. We started supporting FoH in 2017. The theme of the display was “Models of Aircraft, Ships and Military Vehicles Used by the U.S. Services.”
For our set-up we had three large, deep tables in one row near one of the doors into the ballroom section. We used our usual set-up starting with the Korean War at the left end and then went chronologically through the Vietnam War and the Cold War to modern aircraft from Desert Storm through Afghanistan. The right end had experimental aircraft and space program vehicles, helicopters, and finally military vehicles and figures. We did have 15 military vehicles, which was probably a record for a FoH display. Thanks to all for loaning those models this year. We also may have had a record number of helicopters, with 11 of those ranging from 1/144 to 1/35 scale. Of note, we had no ship or sub models, so request that ASM members please build some for next year in any scale.
Something new this year were several models applying to Kirtland AFB and New Mexico before the Korean War on the far-right end of the display. These included signage and aircraft from the “World’s First Bombardier School” at Albuquerque Army Air Base (later Kirtland Field) in 1941 (B-17 “Flying Fortress” and B-24 “Liberator”) and the P-38H “Lightning” flown by New Mexico’s World War II fighter ace Captain Danny Roberts. He was born in Tucumcari, New Mexico and graduated from New Mexico Highlands University. Roberts had scored 14 victories with the 475th Fighter Group “Satan’s Angels” and was the commander of the 433rd “Possum Squadron” when he was killed in action on November 19, 1943. He was a leading ace in the Pacific Theater at the time, behind only Dick Bong and just ahead of Tommy McGuire, and he is the 38th-ranking U.S. ace. See the picture of his model (pic 34) that includes a short biography for more details on his life.
The event had one ballroom set up for the on-line auctions and one large ballroom for the dinner and live auctions. Pictures are posted below that show the event spaces and our model display. Note that some pictures have few people in them as they were taken during the dinner. Display set-up is in pics 1-8, event spaces in pics 9-22, models in pics 23-34, discussions with attendees in pics 35-40, a pic of New Mexico-related models in 41, and additional model pics and tear-down in pics 42-46.
The display was set-up and manned by Matt and Mike Blohm and Frank Randall. Models were provided for the display by Frank Randall, Don Gatewood, Victor Maestas, Brian Peck, Mark Vaughn. Scott Jaworski, Bob Henderson, Chuck Herrmann, Josh Pals, and Matt and Mike Blohm.
The President of the Folds of Honor New Mexico, Col Jim Quick, thanked us for putting on the display. Thanks to all who participated and loaned models, and thanks to Hobby Proz for letting us stage the model tubs at the shop.
We had a great time and successfully met our goals of promoting ASM and the hobby of scale modeling, and providing service to the community. If anybody would like to build a model to auction off at the 2026 event, please let me know.
