It’s not every day that a kid from western Oklahoma gets to spend time with the most powerful man in the world.
Kyle Bagzis flew in some rare air for 14 months and transported two men with that designation.
The 2017 Cheyenne High School graduate earned an associate degree from Southwestern Oklahoma State University through the Sayre campus in May 2019.
A week later, he left for Marine boot camp.
Now he flies in helicopters.
“As a Crew Chief in the Marine Corps, I fly in the back of the aircraft and assist the pilots as needed,” Bagzis said.
He’s also the mechanic for the aircraft before and after landing.
After a year of learning how to fly on the CH-53E Super Stallion, he got a phone call from HMX-1, the presidential helicopter squadron. They wanted him to fly with them.
After three years of training flights and flying with former Vice President Harris, Bagzis became a Marine One Crew Chief.
“Marine One” is the designation for any Marine Corps aircraft that carries the President.
“I was handpicked to become one of four Marines to fly the President of the United States, which was an absolute honor,” Bagzis said.
He also said that both former President Biden and President Trump were “pretty funny.”
Just before one of his first flights with former President Biden, the President picked up some trash off the White House lawn as he walked toward Marine One. “As he got inside the helicopter, he told the pilots, ‘I can’t believe your Crew Chief would litter on my lawn,’” Bagzis said.
His pilots enjoyed giving him some grief for that.
Bagzis also flew President Trump on his first flight after returning to office this year.
“As I was picking up President Trump, the First Lady, Elon Musk, and his son, President Trump came up in front of me with Melania and stopped,” Bagzis said. “He said to her, ‘Let’s just take a second—just look at all of this. I am so happy to be back.’”
Bagzis usually flew the Presidents to an Air Force Base where they would board Air Force One, the presidential airplane, for a longer flight.
He also flew Vice President Vance as well as the Japanese Prime Minister.
Bagzis’s Marine One tour recently ended after 14 months, and he’s moving to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California, where he’ll fly on the CH-53E Super Stallion again.
“Grandma Neva and Grandpa Joe [Pyatt] live in Cheyenne, where my parents, Mike and Renae Bagzis, also live,” Bagzis said.
Though the kid from Cheyenne spent more than a year in rare air and transported two iterations of the most powerful man in the world, he remembers who he is and where he’s from.
Like a Kipling poem, Kyle Bagzis was able to fly with Presidents without losing the common touch.
