"William Bethel Morgan" (June 6,1921-December 30,2006)

Was from Wyano, Pennsylvania  (Westmoreland County),a small coal mining

community.His daddy was William Bethel Morgan,Sr.,a coal miner,and his mama was Susie Harris Morgan a farmer.When he was just 8,in 1929,William's daddy died in Wyano coal mining accident.William and his mama move onto a farm in Yukon,Pennsylvania as the only African American family in town.
He worked the farm,attended Homestead High School,played football and the guitar.Yukon was where he spent most of his young adult life as a farmer.Traveling to his job as chipper in the Pittsburgh Steel Foundry.His mama wanted him to be a Raleigh salesman or a school teacher.William tried the Raleigh job,however door-to-door sales were too frustrating for him.In 1942 while William was working in a steel mill,he read an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazetter about Tuskegee University where young men African American men trained to be fighter pilots.
He volunteered for the services in 1943 and after a long battery of tests,managed to get "in-line as a pre-aviation cadet in 1944.He waited a year for a class to be formed.
His grades in high school were very good.Te tests were very hard.Only 35 out of 537 made it into flight training William was one of them.The service was actually the first experiences he got to be around other African Americans.William said the experiences was incredible.He would say,"I learned a about life after meeting the cream of  crop of  the African American race.I saw what we could make of ourselves."I saw what we could make out of ourselves."William began training in Mississippi earning his wings in PT-13s.He later learned compat techinques in AT-6 trainers and later moved to gunnery training of the Florida coast in AT-6s and the P-51s.William was was a  member of the last class to graduate from Tuskegee University on September 8,1945,and was one the last assigned as a replacement to the 33nd fighter group,the Red Tails;Class SE 45-F.He graduated as a Flighter Officer.He never got to see compat.The war was over before he could be assigned to his unit.After he left services he spent time in Atlanta & New York.William enrolled in dental school at the University of Pittsburgh,as one of  only 4 African American,earning his DDS degree in 1957.Soon after,Dr.Morgan purchased a dental practice from a white dentist in the Hill District of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.As william business grew,he opened a satelite office in Braddock,Pennsylvania.He practiced dentistry for a little over 10 years in the Pittsburgh area.Not like politics and the racial tension in the city in the late 60's,Dr.Morgan moved his family (Martha his wife,and two children Bill Jr & Susan)  to Wanamingo Minnesota,a Scandinavian community of 500 people.Around, 1980,after 12 years in successful practice,Dr.Morgan accepted a dental position at the Regional Treatment Center,in Fergus Falls,Minnesota.