Tinker employees share ‘positively presidential’ names Published Feb. 18, 2005 By Crystal Toenjes 72nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) -- Tinker has been visited by many men who have been presidents of the United States, but a quick look at the personnel directory might cause people to wonder if some of America’s past chief executives are part of the Tinker family.Georgia Washington, operations director in the propulsion product group, transferred here from Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, in July 2000.“I’m named after my paternal grandmother, Georgia Hall,” she said. “Hall was my maiden name; I married a Washington.”Ms. Washington said while living in San Antonio, she usually got attention for her famous sounding name in the month of February, when local TV reporters often requested interviews.One night she arrived home and a reporter was parked in front of her house. She said she immediately thought something horrible had happened to her family and ran into the house.In fact, the reporters had been waiting for sometime and had decided to interview her husband and son on “living with a president.” Ms. Washington disrupted the interview when she ran into the room. Her son said she ruined his one chance to appear on television.She once received a business call from a man who knew her name was similar to the nation’s first president, and when he called, he asked to speak to Martha Washington.“Oftentimes, I’ve been called the ‘mother of our country,’” Ms. Washington said, “but I certainly have nothing in common with George Washington.”Richard Nixon, tanker post dock sub-unit chief in the aircraft maintenance group, is used to the friendly teasing of being called “Mr. President” by friends, co-workers and even his own mother.“I was born in 1956, when Richard Nixon was vice president; my parents never gave it a thought ‘till someone asked if they had named me after him,” he said. “They hadn’t, of course; they just liked the name ‘Richard.’ My mother enjoys telling everyone her son is Mr. President.”Mr. Nixon, who will mark 30 years of federal service in October, said he has had several interesting experiences because of his name, especially during his five-and-a-half years in the Air Force.“In 1975, during Air Force basic training, I was immediately assigned as the dorm chief, and everyone got a kick out of me being the commander-in-chief,” he said.He had the chance to really enjoy using his name when he started as a tanker crew chief in 1992.“We would put our names on the nose of the aircraft to let anyone know who was the ‘belly button’ for the aircraft,” he said. “I would put my name and ‘Air Force One,’ and as you can imagine, it got lots of attention from people walking by.”Johnny Adams -- as far as he knows -- is no relation to the second U.S. president or his son, John Quincy Adams, the country’s sixth president.“There’s a history about me, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the president,” he said.Mr. Adams is a contractor in the 72nd Mission Support Group. He was stationed at Tinker from 1983 to 1985 when he was on active duty in the 552nd Air Control Wing and again from 1992 to 1998. He went on a remote tour and returned in 1999 and stayed until October 2001 when he retired.An Oklahoma native whose family roots run deep in the state, Mr. Adams said he was surprised to discover he was the only John Adams working at Tinker.“Some people ask if I’m kin to the president. I tell them ‘no,’ but my uncle’s name was John Quincy,” as was one of his more distant ancestors, Mr. Adams said.He said naming a son “John” is a family tradition, and in his case, the first name just happened to get paired with the last name, which made it a historically recognizable moniker.As a child, he said he was teased more often about being of the ghoulish “Addam’s Family” from TV than with sharing a name with a former president.“I used to get called ‘Cousin It,’ and that was by the school teachers,” he said.