Everett Steele figures he’s greeted 360 troop flights in the last 10 years at Bangor International Airport. That’s a lot of hand-shaking and “welcome homes” from the Korean War veteran who was at BIA when the very first troop carrier landed on the morning of March 8, 1991.

Television viewers watched as Sgt. Kevin Tillman, fresh out of the Persian Gulf following the brief air and ground war, borrowed a student musician’s saxophone and played a heartfelt rendition of the national anthem. By nightfall the Army medic’s impromptu performance was broadcast across the nation and Bangor’s first homecoming was already part of local legend.

The airport crowds swelled in the coming months, greeting an estimated 100,000 returning Gulf War troops, but began to wane after the last official flight departed on May 27. But Steele, Hilda Gott, Don Crosby, Sylvia Thompson and a small cadre of others kept turning out to make sure no troop left Bangor without fond memories.

Steele, now 68 and living at the Maine Veterans Home, hopes to attend today’s 11 a.m. press conference at BIA announcing what he has been working so hard to accomplish in the past months: an airport reunion to be held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 7 . The event, complete with speeches, music and refreshments, will be open to anyone who wishes to recall the decade-old greetings.

Sgt. Tillman will attend the press conference, along with Julie Ewing, chair of the fine arts department at John Bapst Memorial. That school’s band played the morning of Tillman’s performance and he has been an honored guest at the school since 1991.

Steele planted the seed for the reunion, but credit must also go to Mike Youngblood, director of member services at the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce; Connie Strout, BIA administrative assistant; Col. Frances Auclair of the Maine Air National Guard and various members of the Maine Troop Greeters Committee and representatives from City Hall.

Visitors to next Wednesday’s event are encouraged to come early to hear Sgt. Tillman perform the national anthem and a new composition honoring Bangor. Command Sgt. Maj. John Leonard of the U.S. Department of Defense will speak along with other honored guests.

But it’s the humble troop greeters – the many still living and the ones now deceased – who should be the true guests of honor. Without them an important chapter in the city’s long history would never have been written.