The Poletto Collection has been a part of Great Falls travel since 1977, when it was first put on display at the Great Falls International Airport. Bary Poletto would start with a relative handful of models on display, but the Collection has grown to almost 900 aircraft, representing 491 airlines from 128 nations, with 116 different types from 47 different manufacturers. It is considered the largest collection of its kind in the world, and one of the largest collections of models anywhere. The Collection has had its ups and downs, victories and defeats, but it has been greeting visitors to Great Falls for almost 50 years. Join us in the Ozark Club at 1pm to hear Professor Benjamin Donnelly, the current caretaker of the collection, talk about this amazing display.

Benjamin Donnelly is the history professor at the University of Providence Great Falls. Born in Georgia, he ended up here thanks to his father being in the US Air Force, who assigned the latter to Malmstrom AFB as his first duty station. Since then, Ben has traveled (involuntarily) around the world, from Montana to Germany to Colorado and back. His father Dane built most of the model aircraft at the Malmstrom AFB Museum, while his stepfather Bary Poletto built the Poletto Collection at the Great Falls International Airport. Add that to being raised in the USAF, and Ben had little choice but to grow up loving things with wings. Though he spends most of his time teaching history at the University of Providence and MSU-Great Falls College, he spends his off time getting pictures of aircraft, studying aircraft, and writing about aircraft. And yet he's afraid of flying.