Air Force F-35 Flyover Delights UW Football Crowd in Home Opener

Fans attending the University of Wyoming football game against Northern Colorado today received an extra treat beyond the Cowboys’ 21-13 victory.

Four F-35 fighter jets from the Alabama Air National Guard’s 100th Fighter Squadron conducted a flyover of War Memorial Stadium at the conclusion of the national anthem, delighting the near-capacity crowd for the Cowboys’ home opener today (Saturday).

The flyover was secured by Lt. Col. Bret Cove, commander of UW’s Air Force ROTC Detachment 940, and Shelley Heward, UW’s associate athletics director for marketing and branding.

“We thought this was an incredible and unique opportunity for the university and the Air Force ROTC here,” Cove says. “I’m so glad we were able to highlight the university’s connection to the Air Force and the broader military community.”

Particularly significant was the fact that one of the four pilots, Col. Richard Peace, is a UW mechanical engineering graduate who played football and competed in track and field for UW in the mid-1990s. He flew the lead aircraft, a Red Tail F-35, honoring the Tuskegee Airmen from World War II. Peace was a member of the 1996 football team enshrined Friday night in the UW Athletics Hall of Fame.

“Flying fighters in the Air Force is, for me, about the closest thing I found to when I was playing football at Wyoming. Football is a team game where everyone has their individual roles, and flying fighters is the same way,” says Peace, now the commander of the Georgia Air National Guard’s Combat Readiness Training Center. “The only thing better than showing up for the (team) reunion is flying an F-35 over the stadium.”

Peace and the other pilots were honored on the field in the second half of the Cowboys’ comeback victory.

UW President Shane Reeves, who just retired as a brigadier general after 30 years in the U.S. Army, says the flyover was a great way to kick off the fall semester and the football season -- and highlighted UW’s long and deep connection with the U.S. military.

“The flyover was a stunning and inspiring tribute to all those who now serve and have served our nation,” Reeves says. “What an incredible way to begin our football season.”

Air Force ROTC Detachment 940 traces its roots to UW’s long tradition of military education, which began with the establishment of ROTC at UW in 1916. Following World War II and the creation of the Air Force in 1947, Air Force ROTC was formally established at UW in July 1952.

For more than seven decades, Detachment 940 has developed generations of officers who have gone on to serve the nation across the Air Force and, more recently, the U.S. Space Force. Its location in Laramie provides cadets with a unique connection to the strategic mission of F.E. Warren Air Force Base, the Wyoming Air National Guard and the broader military community of the Rocky Mountain region.