Passing of CMPD Officer "Slim" Burgess

As you might guess from his nickname Everette Collins Burgess was "Carolina" born and raised, along with a little help from the United States Marine Corps.

Slim was 81 when he passed way at his home in Maiden, North Carolina, with his family by his side on April 12, 2011.

He was born on July 31, 1929 in Rockingham County, the son of Herbert C. and Mattie Saunders Burgess.

Slim served two tours of duty with the U. S. Marine Corps and served as an officer with the Charlotte Police Department for 30 years.

Slim Burgess is well known for two things many CMPD officers today take for granted. He was one of the first three pioneering helicopter pilots when the department acquired its first helicopter the famed and original "Snoopy One" officially known as a Bell 47G-5.

The Bell 47 recognizable by its gold fish bowl cockpit and saddle bag fuel tanks also had the well known nick name of "salt shaker".



But Slim's most noteble contribution might just be the hornet's nest badge that today every CMPD officer wears, the badge he designed.



Cedar's Take:

I don't know a pilot who hasn't read at least a dozen times John Gillespie Magee, Jr's poem.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Fittingly the poem was included in Slim Burgess' service held at Mt. Anderson Baptist Church on April 15, 2011.