Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va) stopped by the Mercer County Airport Civil Air Patrol Composite Squadron in Bluefield to bestow a great honor on one of its cadets.

Captain Peyton Bogle received the Amelia Earhart Award in front of his family, friends and fellow cadets. Only three percent of the nearly 22,000 CAP cadets nationally earn this. He says it means so much.

“Whenever I first joined the Civil Air Patrol I wasn’t entirely up with it. It was something to do after school,” said Mercer County Squadron Cadet Commander Bogle. Zen Mayberry I saw him whenever he was promoting to his Mitchell award. And that kind of gave me a little bit of motivation to earn mine. And then Hayley Tharp, she just recently earned her spots and seeing her earn that award motivated me a whole lot to up my ranks until I leave for the Air Force.”

Capito calls earning the Amelia Earhart Award an amazing achievement for Bogle.

“I can’t help but be just so incredibly impressed,” the senator said. “That’s while you’re going to school, doing all your chores — and to be in the top three percent is really, I think, quite an honor.”

Deputy Commander Ivan Whitlow calls Peyton an extraordinary cadet, very well-gifted and talented.

“There is not a single task that I have given him or thought about giving him that he has not been able to complete with absolute excellence,” said USAF aux CAP Whitlow. “It doesn’t shock me that he would get this far in the cadet program. And this is actually his third milestone with the CAP.”

What’s exciting for Bogle, he says is his leadership role with new cadets.

“Seeing them grow from, you know the little kid they were whenever they first joined, to earning their first milestone achievement,” the cadet commander said. “And you’re seeing everything falling into place from where it started.”

Peyton’s deputy commander is super proud of him.

“On a scale from 1 to 10, I’m over the moon with an 11-plus,” said Whitlow.

Bogle thanked his family and all those who supported him along this journey. For anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps, he says to keep going.

“The tests, they can get hard and once you get to the officer ranks, the SDAs they can really get to your mind,” he said. “But you got to push through and it’ll all be worth it in the end.”

With Captain Bogle ascending to the United States Air Force and the protection and leadership of our country…

“(Those) are the kind of qualities that only somebody who’s earned an Amelia Earhart Award would have,” said Capito. “So I know you’re gonna do big things… I just know it.”