SAN ANGELO, Texas —
The City of San Angelo lost one of its most iconic figures this week.
U.S. Air Force Col. Charles Powell, 89, died according to a release from Goodfellow Air Force Base.
Col. Powell served 30 years in the Air Force, and was the GAFB Wing Commander from 1980, until the day he retired in San Angelo in 1984.
Former San Angelo Independent School District superintendent and friend to the Powell family, Dr. Carol Ann Bonds shared stories about Col. Powell and wife JoAnne.
"They knew each other from the time they were little children, but by the time they were in third grade, they knew they were boyfriend and girlfriend," Bonds said.
They continued to stay together up until the day Powell left for the Naval Academy.
Powell and JoAnne would later go on and marry JoAnne, and would call San Angelo their home.
Bonds said both Col. Powell and JoAnne were very active in the community.
JoAnne would go on to serve three U.S. Congressmen, and is currently Congressman Mike Conaway's longtime assistant.
As for Col. Powell, he was on the board of Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, the San Angelo Regional Airport Advisory Board, to name a few.
In 2015, Powell would even go on to win the Distinguished Citizen of the Year award.
Both he and his wife were heavily involved in the church. They would spend their Sundays at Johnson Street Church of Christ.
Bonds credits their faith as the reason why the both of them would always put others before themselves.
"They do a lot for other people and they don't even have to know, and the person doesn't have to even be military," Bonds said. "If they hear about a person in need, and to the extent that they can do something for them."
Bonds would later go on to say Powell and JoAnne were as close to the perfect human beings possible on this earth, and it showed through their love of God, their family and their country.
Bonds said if she could tell her friend Col. Charles Powell anything it would be a simple message.
"To prepare a place for for the rest of us in heaven and that we miss him, but we wouldn't take him from his heavenly home."