The Navy glee club performs for a Nashville Top Gun and his crowd.

The only thing Bill Minkoff, a graduate of the Naval Academy and Top Gun fighter school, might be prouder of than his Navy ties is the new Georgian mansion he and his wife, Elizabeth, built in the Belle Meade section of Nashville. So when he heard the Academy was springing its glee club for a trip to sing with the Nashville Symphony, he knew what he had to do: round up his flyboys past and present and treat the Middies to a VIP concert pre-party and genuine Southern-style homecoming.

Guests began arriving late on the mild fall afternoon to a cappella strains of barbershop and doo-wop. Elizabeth cranked the radiant heat in her outdoor kitchen and several Mids tried the Minkoffs’ four-hole putting green and driving range. One Minkoff wingman in attendance was D. “D-5” Thompson, who flew in on his Citation from his Memphis Caterpillar dealership. Other revelers included former Broad Street Bully and Tennessee Predators TV announcer Terry Crisp (Thompson is with the group buying the NHL club) and newspaper publisher Steve Edwards, who flew his Pilatus in from his Wyoming ranch. And what kind of society party would it have been without a plastic surgeon? Dr. Tom Orcutt, who flies his Beech Bonanza (the Flying Botox perhaps?) to clients throughout the South, was there to oblige.

As for Bill, who’s launching a VLJ-leasing firm, he’s waiting on a new Embraer Phenom 100. He already has his first outing planned — a mission with D-5, Wyoming Kid and the Knife to the Greenbrier Sporting Club.

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