Photo from the Warren Times Mirror Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Bogart was the commencement speaker for the Warren High School Class of 1960.

There are times when I have to write these stories knowing that I don’t, in fact, have the rest of the story.

But a Warren-native that rose to the rank of Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force and then worked in the administration at NASA as part of the Office of Manned Space Flight during the Apollo years who received NASA’s highest award the same year Jim Lovell, Wernher Von Braun and two members of the Apollo 1 crew.

That’s the life of Frank A. Bogart.

The details on his military career are clear and I’ve patched together what details I could find about his career at NASA.

The Air Force has published on its website a detailed biography of Bogart’s military career.

Noting that he was born in Warren in 1909, the biography from the Air Force states that Bogart received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in 1927 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery in June 1931.

His first foreign post was over two years on Corregidor in the Philippines in 1932 until February. 1935. After two years of education, he was assigned to the Panama Canal Zone.

He returned to the states in 1940 and studied mechanical engineering as a postgraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Then came World War II.

In 1941 he was a training officer and then took over seacoast defense and the Alaskan construction program before he was assigned to the Services of Supply, “responsible for the logistic planning of overseas,” from March 1942 until Nov. 1933 “when he was sent to Moscow, U.S.S.R. as a logistic planner for the U.S. Military Mission.”

He returned to Washington after the war in Europe ended in 1945 as deputy chief of the Army’s Plans Division, where he assisted in the preparation of plans for a 1946 War Department reorganization.

What we know as the U.S. Air Force started at the Army Air Corps and Bogart was transferred to the modern Air Force in Sept. 1947.

He continued working in the logistics space when he was assigned to Paris under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Planning Group where he served for three years.

Returning statewide in 1954, he was named deputy director of budget for the Air Force and became director later that year, where he worked for four years before he went back into logistics and programming.

He was also confirmed by the Senate as comptroller of the Air Force in 1961.

According to the Air Force, he retired in 1964 at the rank of Lieutenant General, equivalent to a three-star general.

It appears that he did not rest on his considerable laurels in retirement, though.

A bio from NASA says he joined that agency the year he retired from the Air Force.

“Gen. Bogart had joined NASA in 1964 and had received numerous high awards and honors, including 1969 NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his contributions to the Apollo lunar landing program,” that bio states.

Another NASA source says he joined the agency in Sept. 1965.

He was Manned Spacecraft Center associate director.

I reviewed a dozen or more NASA documents where his name popped up to get a sense for his role, which appears to have included a heavy logistics/business management focus. An oral history with a NASA employee called Bogart “kind of the business director.”

What I’ve learned about his NASA career will be presented in pieces. It’s the best I can offer at this point.

He participated in at least one briefing relative to the Apollo 1 fire.

He worked directly under the first director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Robert Gilruth.

He was awarded NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal – the agency’s highest award – in 1969. And this is a “big deal.”

The year he received the award, astronauts from Apollo 1, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, and 16 including Jim Lovell were also recognized, along with rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.

The following year? Two men on the list were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Perhaps most interestingly, Bogart was identified as an alternate for the committee that was established to determine how NASA was going to commemorate the Apollo 11 landing.

Ideas discussed included United States and United Nations flags, decal flags of UN member states on the lunar module as well as “leaving a capsule on the surface with information about the Apollo program and personnel and copies of international agreements,” according to a NASA report.

Ultimately, the committee decided on an American flag raised “in a simple ceremony.”

Bogart died in Aug. 1992 at the age of 83 and he’s buried at the Barrancas National Cemetery in Florida.

I freely admit that this story came out of nowhere. I wasn’t looking for it. When I was researching early Kinzua Dam land use proposals, I came across a note that Bogart was going to be the commencement speaker at Warren High School in June 1960.

Here’s what the local papers reported about that trip home: “Another Warren High School graduate who has attained distinction in military rank will return to his hometown as speaker for the school’s 83rd commencement exercises Thursday evening at Beaty Junior High School,” the paper reported. “The younger son of the late Frank Arthur and Minnie Weeks Bogart, he was born in Warren Jan. 12, 1909. General Bogart wears the Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit with an Oak Leaf Cluster.”

He offered two major pieces of advice – Be interested. Be reliable.”

“General Bogart said it certainly should not be difficult to take an interest in almost any activity in these days and times, since we are living in a ‘tremendously interesting period,'” the Times Mirror reported. “When I say ‘take an interest in things going on today,’ I’m being a little restrictive. I mean to learn everything you can about the work you are doing yourself and its relation to the work of which it is a part. Then find out what the fellow on either side of you is doing, and why. And the man ahead of you. When opportunity arises, inevitably, you will be ready to take on broader responsibilities.”

He told the graduates that the “most valuable asset any person has is his reputation. And a reputation for trustworthiness and dependability is the absolute open sesame to opportunity. Such a reputation is built up over a period of time, and it is made up of many small and frequently repetitive actions.”

“Whether you are in college, in business or industry, you will find your reputation for reliability, which implies honesty and dependability, will generate real and often unexpected opportunities.”

Not knowing that his NASA career was on the horizon, it appears he might have been speaking to himself there.

“When you are supposed to be at a certain place at a certain time, bet there. If you have a piece of work to finish by a certain time, finish it. And do an honest, honorable job. Look out for the interests of your school, your company or your boss. Never knowingly let them down…. Take an interest in whatever you do and be reliable. These two things will make your daily chores more enjoyable and they will assure your readiness each time opportunity beckons.”