The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Mural

In 2004, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation commissioned Stan to create a massive mural honoring the “History of the Flying White House”. The mural was to be 120 feet long, 12 feet high with the entire canvas in a 90 degree arch. Stan’s good friend Robert J. Pond agreed to sponsor the entire cost of the mural.

The mural depicts the history of all of the aircraft that had carried a sitting US President, US Army Air Force, US Navy and US Air Force.

The first step was to start to research all of the aircraft. This came down to finding where they all had “retired” to. With a few exceptions, they were in museums. The USAF Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force base had seven of them so this was a great place to start. Columbine II, Eisenhower’s Lockheed 749 Constellation was at Marana Regional Airport in Arizona. The Douglas VC-118 Liftmaster was at the Pima Air and Space Museum also in Arizona, the VC-137B (707) SAM 970 was at the Museum of Flight, Seattle and the VC-137C SAM 27000 was already at the Reagan Library. Its wings, engines and tail group were in the Reagan Library’s upper parking lot and the fuselage in the lower parking lot.

The actual painting of the mural (oil on canvas) took about a year and 1/2 to accomplish. During that time, Stan also created the painting of the USS Ronald Reagan for the Library. This had Stan going to NAS North Island, San Diego, to have photo season with the actual ship.