Technical school student aces exams

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Leandra D. Stepp
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- --  An Airman at Altus AFB is the only first-term Airman to go through the boom operator technical school scoring a 100% on every test.

Airman 1st Class Nicholas Roney is a boom operator technical school student who arrived at Altus in September 2011. Boom operator students spend the first 40 days out of the four months of training in academic classrooms. During those 40 days, 12 tests are administered to students. Roney scored perfectly on all 12 exams.

According to Lew Timbrook and Rick Raprager, Canadian Avionics Electronics USA/Delaware Resource Group instructor boom operators, the only other time a student has aced the program was a Master Sgt. who cross-trained into the boom operator career field from another aircrew career field over 20 years ago.

"He (Roney) aced the whole program," said Timbrook, "I have been an instructor for over 30 years and have never seen that happen to an Airman."

"It's definitely do-able for other Airmen" said Roney. "Studying as a group helped too, that's the easiest way to remember anything."

Roney reflected back to his days in high school where studying was not an important factor to him.

"I wasn't interested in growing up and getting a job. I was going through it (high school) to get through it because I didn't know what I wanted to do."

"Coming here and learning the job motivated me to study more. I felt like it was interesting enough to learn. Learning something that's interesting to me gives me that extra motivation."

Not only is Roney an "A" student, he also is the senior white rope for the chapel annex, the "Warrior's Refuge". There, he is in charge of making sure the facility is clean and stays clean.
"I spend all my time at the annex working or studying" he said.

Hailing from Penn Township, Penn., Roney graduated from Penn Trafford High School in 2004 and graduated from Penn State where he majored in Biology.

Roney is expected to graduate tech school in April and then move to Fairchild AFB, Wash.