If you walk among the Southern Heritage Air Foundation’s exhibits or around its collection of vintage aircraft looking for Patty Mekus, don’t blink. You may miss her.

The foundation’s president, Mekus supervises volunteers, markets the museum, works to develop activities and new exhibits, plans tours for school groups, and plans special events and fundraising activities. It’s a job that keeps her moving around from one part of the building to the next, from one activity to the next.

“(M*A*S*H star) Loretta Swit called me a dervish (someone with an overload of energy),” she said.

A native of Memphis, Tenn., Mekus is a graduate of the University of Memphis (formerly Memphis State University). She came to Vicksburg with her husband Mike and their children from St. Francisville, La., to be closer to family, and she volunteered as a room mother at St. Francis Xavier, where her children attended school. It was the start of her extended activity in the community.

She worked on the campaign of former Mayor Laurence Leyens, later serving as the city’s public affairs officer and managing its TV 23 access channel.

After working for Jimmy Gouras Planning, she volunteered through Warren-Yazoo Mental Health as local director for the White House Office of the National Drug Control Policy before becoming development director for Vicksburg Catholic Schools, the result, she believes, of her volunteer work at the schools.

“I was there all the time and I got further involved, and the next thing I knew, they wanted to interview me for the job,” Mekus said. “I guess it was because of my marketing background. I really enjoyed it.”

During that same time, she became campaign chairman for one of the annual United Way of West Central Mississippi fund drives.

“I enjoy fundraising, because of the challenges,” she said. “You set the goal, and you develop a strategy to raise it in a not atypical fashion. The kickoff that year was around the time of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during her performance with Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl. We lip-synched the song and when we got to the end, we dropped our tops to reveal T-shirts that said ‘Give to United Way.’

“Our goal was $1.5 million and we came up a little short, but we got close.”

Her involvement with the Southern Heritage Air Foundation came at the urging of foundation president Dan Fordice, who first approached her about becoming foundation president in 2010.

“Dan knew he had a treasure from the items and memorabilia he and his father had collected, but he didn’t know how to market it,” she said.

“I was reluctant to do it because of our friendship; his wife is my best friend,” she said. “I was worried it (working for the foundation) would affect it, so I put him off for a year.”

That one-year delay allowed Mekus to run for Warren County tax collector, a race she lost in the 2011 general election.

She agreed to take the position in 2012, and took over as foundation president in June 2013.

Since then, Mekus improved the foundation’s museum by coordinating and adding displays for visitors, and addressed the challenge of getting a small museum dedicated to flight and veterans at a small general purpose airport in the remote Madison Parish, La., community of Mound noticed.

It’s now visited more regularly by people than every two years when the foundation holds its “Best Little Air Show” at the Vicksburg-Tallulah Regional Airport, and periodically counts visitors from foreign countries among its guests.

Part of gaining that attention involved having special programs at the museum. The first was on the Holocaust.

In 2015, the foundation presented Jan Thompson’s film on survivors of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines, “Never the Same — The Prisoner of War Experience,” an 85-minute documentary narrated by Swit and featuring excerpts from prisoners’ diaries read by actors to give people an intimate profile of what the men went through.

Thompson and Swit, both spoke during the program.

A more regular program, the foundation’s monthly lunch at its hangar routinely draws about 20 to 30 people the third Wednesday of the month.

Mekus said the displays, memorabilia and video interviews seen at the museum are aimed at keeping the memories of World War II veterans alive and providing accurate information about their service.

“For years, many veterans wouldn’t talk about their experiences in the war,” she said. “Now many of them are speaking out, because the way history is being written is changing and they want to make sure they get their accounts down right.”

One thing that has helped the foundation’s museum, she said, is a partnership with the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which has provided help in identifying memorabilia and helping with interviewing veterans.

And the veterans’ stories, she said are passed on to younger people through school field trips to the museum.

“We’ll take them through the museum and we’ll hold contests like scavenger hunts, or we’ll ask them questions about things they learned through the tour, like who was the pilot of the (bomber) Memphis Belle, or what the pyre sign means on Charlotte’s Chariot (the P-51 Mustang at the museum),” Mekus said. “They can take their sack lunches and eat them while watching Disney World War II cartoons.

The museum, she said, also helps support the Warrior Bonfire Program developed by Dan and Hunter Fordice to help veterans deal with the mental problems caused by combat.

“Whenever we can volunteer and help out, we do,” she said.

She recalled the comments of a World War II vet and ex-POW, who said talking with other combat veterans — regardless of which war they participated — helped him deal with the stress.

While the museum is open Wednesday through Saturday, Mekus said, it’s not unusual to see her working six to seven days a week and putting in 50 to 60 hours a week to keep the museum going. She also oversees a staff of about 70 people.

“And all of the people who work here are volunteers,” she said, adding, “They put in a lot of time.”

She said her goal is to help get the museum in a position where it will not have to rely solely on an endowment from the Fordice Family, which helps keep the museum’s airplanes fueled and flying.

And the museum is getting recognition, thanks in part to the National World War II Museum, and in part to help from the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, which lists the museum.

Mekus said she plans to continue working with the foundation to help it continue to expand, adding, “I’ll be here for at least another 20 years. And my friendship with the Fordices has never changed. We’re like family.”