Joshua Millage has been around planes and helicopters his entire life and he has known since the second grade that he wanted to be a pilot and fly for the United States Air Force. Growing up in Maple Valley, Millage attended Tahoma schools through junior high school winning, in the eighth grade, the local competition in the VFW Post 5052 Maple Valley-Black Diamond Patriot’s Pen Youth Essay Contest. He was then accepted into Raisbeck Aviation High School in Tukwila across the street from The Museum of Flight, a highly competitive institution from which the eighteen-year-old will graduate this week.
In the fall of 2015, after attaining the rank of Eagle Scout in Boy Scout Troop 945, he also enlisted in the Seattle Composite Squadron of the Washington Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, earning the prestigious General Billy Mitchell Award in his junior year, which signifies excellence and is achieved by only 15 percent of cadets. Millage now leaves in August for Grand Forks where he will continue to pursue his life dream in the Air Force ROTC program at the University of North Dakota. He will study aviation and mechanical engineering. In all that he has accomplished, Millage has never forgotten his Tahoma roots. In the words of his mother, he has “The wings of a Phoenix and the heart of a Bear.” Joshua Millage is the son of Julie and Michael Millage of Maple Valley.
