Flying High! Meeker’s Nate Bradfield receives nomination to Air Force Academy

MEEKER I Nate Bradfield hopes to be an Air Force pilot someday.
He may be well on his way.
Bradfield, a senior at Meeker High School, has been notified by mail that he was nominated for the U.S. Air Force Academy by Colorado Sen. John Salazar.
The nomination letter arrived in the mail Saturday.
“He got an acceptance letter from the Air Force Academy about a week and a half ago,” said Nate’s father, Wade. “It said this virtually guarantees an appointment, pending congressional nomination, and Saturday, sure as heck, he got the letter from Salazar. So, I think he’s in.”
Wade Bradfield said his son interviewed with staff members for all three Colorado U.S. senators — Salazar, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall. Interestingly, of the three interviews, Nate thought the one with Salazar’s staff didn’t go as well as the other two, his dad said.
“That was the first interview he did, but he didn’t feel like he did that well,” Nate’s father, Wade, said. “But, obviously, he must have done good enough to get a nomination.”
Nate’s interview at Udall’s Grand Junction office took place Nov. 14, the day of the Meeker football playoff game against Yuma. Nate, a member of the Meeker football team, made it back from the interview in time to play in the playoff game.
Nate, who is ranked at the top of his class academically, along with fellow senior Cameron Glasscock, recently completed a ground-school class taught by David Cole and is working on his pilot’s license.
“He wants to fly fighter jets, if he can,” Wade Bradfield said of his son.
Wade Bradfield said Nate would be “the first Meeker kid to go to the Air Force Academy since Tony Seely, I think.”