Rick Broome—Aviation Artist
Thanksgiving weekend, 1974. I was spending the holiday with my girlfriend and on Wednesday evening she told me that she had been in Kemper Gallery on Academy Boulevard and had seen a beautiful painting of a “jet” climbing into the sky.
That immediately got my attention. In fact, it got my attention enough that sometime around 7 or 8 that evening I had her drive me over to Kemper’s so I could see it. Of course, the gallery was closed. But prominently displayed inside the front window was the painting she had described—a T-38 climbing almost vertically through the clouds. We stood outside in the dark looking through the glass. It was spectacular. I didn’t know it then, but I was looking through Kemper’s window at a picture of a future I couldn’t yet know I was going to have.
We went back to Kemper’s that weekend after the gallery opened. I didn’t know anything about art—I was an engineering major—but I knew I loved that painting. There was something about the drama of that T-38, the “White Rocket,” climbing into the sky that captivated me. There was one problem. As I recall, the painting cost about $250, which was a substantial amount of money for a cadet in 1974. I asked Mr. Kemper if I could buy it on layaway. He agreed.
At the counter Mr. Kemper started taking down my information. When he realized I was an Air Force Academy cadet, he looked at me and said something to the effect of, “Why don’t you just take the painting with you and enjoy it? Come in and make payments when you can.” I gave him $50 and walked out of Kemper Gallery with the painting.
That may sound remarkable today, but as cadets we enjoyed a special relationship with Colorado Springs. There was a degree of trust that I don’t think we fully appreciated at the time. Stores extended us credit, businesses cashed our checks, sometimes without identification, and merchants generally regarded an Academy cadet as honest and reliable. Mr. Kemper simply trusted that I would come back and pay him. And I did. We hung the painting at my girlfriend’s home, and every couple of weeks I stopped by Kemper’s and made another payment.
Mr. Kemper told me that the painting had been done by a young local aviation artist. I didn’t recognize the name. Sometime in late spring 1975, Mr. Kemper told me the gallery was going to hold an Aviation Art Day. Several local aviation artists would be there displaying their work, including the artist who had painted my T-38. Naturally, I wanted to go. When I arrived at Kemper’s that day, I recognized one of the displays immediately. The paintings had the same distinctive style as my T-38. Then I saw the artist. I knew that guy. It was Rick Broome. The car salesman.
Rick recognized me too. One of the first things he asked was how I liked the Corvette. And that was when the Clue Bird finally hit me “wamp-em side of the head.” Painting! Almost a year earlier Rick had told me he was leaving Daniel’s Chevrolet to go into “painting.” He hadn’t meant houses. Dah!
I told Rick that I was the cadet who had bought his T-38 painting. He was surprised. Apparently Mr. Kemper had only told him that an Air Force Academy cadet had purchased it, and Rick commented on how quickly it had sold. That day I bought two more of Rick’s paintings, both featuring F-4s. I still own all three. What neither of us could have known that day was where Rick’s “painting” career—or my association with the T-38—would eventually lead.
Rick Broome went on to become closely associated with the Air Force Academy for decades. His aviation paintings became familiar to generations of cadets, graduates, and Air Force families. For roughly four decades he produced paintings for graduating Academy classes. One of his paintings was presented by the Class of 2019 to President Donald Trump when the class made him an honorary member at graduation. Over the years Rick and I stayed in touch, particularly after the arrival of Facebook and the web.
At some point in the 1990s, he took my three paintings and put them into his special “Starlite” frames with black lights, which allow the paintings to take on a different appearance under ultraviolet light. I also visited Rick and his wife, Billie, several times at their Broadmoor home and studio. By then Rick’s workplace had become something you weren’t likely to forget—part of a Boeing 727 was incorporated right into the studio.
My last visit was with my wife, Linda, during our 40th reunion weekend in 2015. Unfortunately, the years have caught up with Rick. Billie passed away in 2024, and with Rick’s declining health, his artwork, home and remarkable 727 studio eventually had to be sold.
Kemper Gallery is gone but my connection with Rick remains on my wall. Of the three paintings, the T-38 is particularly special. The T-38 already had a special hold on my imagination as a cadet. I had a book about pilot training with a black-and-white photograph of a T-38 in flight. The caption underneath was simply, “Class in Session, 20,000 Feet.” I never forgot it.
In the years that followed, the T-38 became part of my own story. I first flew it in pilot training and later at the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards, where it truly became a classroom in the sky. Still later, I returned to the T-38 during several assignments at Edwards for proficiency and photo chase work. Altogether, I accumulated 511 hours in the T-38. And it really was a “White Rocket.” A fantastic airplane and an absolute joy to fly.
Today, more than 50 years after I first saw it through Kemper’s window, Rick’s painting is a daily reminder of my special relationship with the T-38 “White Rocket.” There is another memory wrapped up in it as well. In December 1973, I walked into Daniel’s Chevrolet looking for somebody who would sell a cadet a Corvette. I happened to meet a 26-year-old salesman named Rick Broome. He sold me the car. A year later, without realizing it, I bought his painting. And more than 50 years later, I still have them both—the memories of the Corvette and the paintings of the young car salesman who decided he would rather paint airplanes. (September 2026)
On the Saturday morning in question, I am sound asleep when my door is jerked open and in walks the Group AOC, Group Commander and an untold number of Dancing Bears. They appeared to be oblivious to the fact that I was sleeping in the top bunk since the first thing I heard (other than the pattering of little feet on a waxed floor) is, "We've got him now!" Someone in this entourage, points to a corner of the room near a window and directs one of the underlings to investigate . . . Freeze Frame.
