Naval aviation legend and Ohio State president hasn't hasn't forgotten Burrillville roots
When Walter “Ted” Carter won the Rhode Island Science Fair in 1977, he thought that might serve as a springboard to advanced study in biology. Perhaps he would become a dentist.
Fortunately for this state, the Navy and the higher education community in this country, he took a different direction.
In the ensuing decades, he graduated from Annapolis, went to flight school and became one of the most accomplished and celebrated naval aviators in history. He went on to serve as president of the Naval War College and superintendent of the Naval Academy.
After 38 years of active duty, he retired from the Navy and was named the eighth president of the University of Nebraska System. Last week, Ohio State University named Carter its 17th president. His tenure will begin on Jan. 1, 2024.
On Friday, Ted Carter came home to Burrillville, where the Broncos sports facility was renamed the Vice Admiral Walter “Ted” Carter Gymnasium.
A capacity crowd of some 400 well-wishers packed the Burrillville High School facility known until Friday as the Bronco Dome.
The entire senior class joined about 140 family members and friends to honor Carter. “I have nothing but love and respect for this community,” Carter said after the ceremony.
Jeffrey “Ace” Farrell, the owner-operator of Farrell Signs in Burrillville, came up with the idea. He is one of Carter’s Burrillville High School teammates, and they have maintained their friendship through the years.
“It was in the works for two years,” Farrell said. Getting the approvals from the high school, the school department and the Town Council took time.
As is typical of Carter, he wanted the event to take place during school hours, “so he could speak with the kids,” said Farrell.
“I remember being in those seats,” Carter told me after the ceremony. “I remember being there as a freshman and wondering, ‘What will my life be like?’
“And I remember being a senior, which is what those kids today were. I just wanted them to know that you can dream it, you can imagine it, and you can do it.”
Principal Michael Lazzareschi, Farrell and Carter spoke at the dedication, which included an unveiling of signage in the gym floor as well as outside the building.
Humble origins: Walter 'Ted' Carter's start in Burrillville
Ted was born and raised in Pascoag, a village of perhaps 5,000 people, one of eight villages that make up the Town of Burrillville. He was the eldest of three children born to Walter and Dorothy Carter.
He went to St. Joseph's School but left for Burrillville Junior High when his mother began teaching English there. "I was in her classroom in seventh grade as well as 10th and 11th grade," laughs Carter.
His high school yearbook entry is crammed with accomplishments. He played varsity soccer, track and basketball, and in those days he spent a lot of free time on the ice as well. The passion for hockey runs deep in Burrillville. The town has had a junior hockey league for some 70 years, making it one of the oldest youth hockey leagues in the nation.
He also played in the band and was offered a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston after winning a stage band competition (much to the consternation of his parents).
Carter won the R.I. State Science Fair in 1977 and went on to the International Science Fair, where he took first prize in oceanography and fourth in biochemistry. In his yearbook, he wrote that his goal was to study biology and eventually become a dentist.
He looked into medical programs at Brown and Harvard, never thinking he had a shot at a service academy.
"As I went through the process of applying for Annapolis," he says, "I lost some interest, primarily because no one from my high school had ever gotten in [to the Naval Academy], and it seemed a long shot."
Carter became the first.
Walter Carter's career begins to 'take off'
While at the Naval Academy, he majored in physics and oceanography, graduating in 1981. He played ice hockey at Navy all four years and was captain of the 1981 team. His hockey prowess not only gave him his eventual naval aviator call sign of "Slapshot," but it also led to meeting his future bride, Lynda.
Then a student at the University of Maryland, she was apparently impressed by the two shorthanded goals he scored in a 4-2 victory against Duquesne in January 1979. They met after the game in Dahlgren Hall (home of Navy's ice rink from 1975 to 2006). Lynda and Ted tied the knot in July 1982.
After the Academy, he earned his wings at Pensacola and was designated a naval flight officer. He graduated from Navy Fighter Weapons School – the training program in San Diego known popularly as "Top Gun" – in March 1985. ("A year before Maverick did," quipped Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, referring to the Tom Cruise character in the 1986 movie of the same name.)
Carter’s flying career involved deploying around the globe while flying the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat. He flew 125 combat missions in support of joint operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross while leading the Navy's first combat mission into Kosovo. He accumulated well over 6,000 flight hours during his career, more than 4,500 hours of which were in the F-14 Tomcat – second all-time among naval aviators.
Carter has landed on 19 different aircraft carriers, including all 10 of the Nimitz Class carriers. He is legendary in naval aviation circles for having made 2,016 "traps," or landings on aircraft carriers — the most in Navy history. (And given the way flight operations are conducted today, that is a record unlikely to ever be broken.)
He has commanded a fighter squadron, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, and a Carrier Strike Group.
He is also the first and only person to earn both of the Navy's most prestigious leadership awards: The Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale Award and the U.S. Navy League's John Paul Jones Award.
Among his significant shore assignments, he served as the 54th president of the U.S. Naval War College. While there, he established the Naval Leadership and Ethics Center.
Subsequently, he was appointed the 62nd superintendent of the Naval Academy in 2014. There, he established the first accredited cyber operations major in the nation and added a nuclear engineering major. During his tenure, Forbes magazine ranked Navy as the nation’s No. 1 public university.
In 2022, the Naval Academy presented Carter with its Distinguished Graduate Award. He has also been inducted into the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame and the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.
A proud son of Burrillville who's never forgotten his roots
"'He has never forgotten where he came from."
Carter’s former history teacher Nancy Villatico, of Smithfield, spoke those words to a Journal reporter in 2009, when Carter decided to celebrate his promotion from captain to rear admiral at the Assembly Theater in Burrillville. He had been promoted the previous month in Virginia but decided to have a ceremony in Harrisville so that his family and friends could share in his achievement.
"I believe in what the Town of Burrillville still has to offer. The education I got set me up for success," Carter said. "I want them to know how proud I am that I am from a small town in Rhode Island and that I don't want anyone to forget that."
Announcements
Next PACT Act enrollment deadline is Sept. 30
Veterans who deployed to a combat zone, never enrolled in VA health care and left the military between Sept. 11, 2001, and Oct. 1, 2013, are eligible to enroll directly in VA health care through the PACT Act. This special enrollment period ends at 11:59 p.m. local time on Sept. 30. Apply at va.gov/health-care/apply/application/introduction
143rd Airlift Wing welcomes airmen returning from Africa
On Labor Day, Sept. 4, families and friends gave 100 airmen a rousing “welcome home” at the Quonset Air National Guard Base in North Kingstown. They were coming back from a three-month deployment with the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, part of the African Command. The returning airmen, members of the 143d Airlift Wing, represented a cross-section of aviation operations, aircraft maintenance and support specialties.
Calendar
Tuesday, Sept. 12, 5 to 8 p.m.: The Matthew Patton Foundation is hosting a Suicide Prevention, Education and Awareness Panel at VFW Post 237, 850 Hope St. in Bristol. The panel provides valuable information on how to identify the signs that an individual is struggling and how to help him or her seek help. Light refreshments will be provided. For more information, contact Paul Carew at (508) 647-6545 or Lynn Patton at (401) 330-6388, or email info@matthewpattonfoundation.org.
Thursday, Sept. 14, 7 p.m.: Meeting, Disabled American Veterans, Chapter 21, Knights of Columbus Dillon Council, 1675 Douglas Ave., North Providence. For information, call Jim Pascetta at (401) 447-7286
Friday, Sept. 15, 1:30 p.m.: Medal of Honor Bridge Dedication Bill Signing Ceremony, Old Mountain Field, 831 Kingstown Road, Wakefield. Gov. Dan McKee and local officials will sign the bill naming three bridges for South Kingstown Medal of Honor recipients: Sgt. William Babcock, U.S. Army, Civil War; Sgt. William Fournier, U.S. Army, World War II; and Cpl. David Champagne, Marine Corps, Korea. For details, email southkingstownri.com/sk300.
To report the outcome of a previous activity, or to add a future event to our calendar, please email the details (including a contact name and phone number/email address) to veteranscolumn@providencejournal.com.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Before Ohio State, Walter Carter was a naval aviator legend from RI
