Meet Ken Schreiber, retired pilot who donated $400,000 to save Neil Armstrong's childhood home

A wall of portraits inside the former bedroom of Neil Armstrong in Wapakoneta, Ohio. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos) In July 1969, Ken Schreiber was nine years old when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon. The moment stayed with him, and like Armstrong, Schreiber eventually became a military fighter pilot. Fifty-seven years later, his admiration for the astronaut led him to donate $400,000 to help preserve the house where Armstrong spent part of his childhood.As reported by the Associated Press (AP), the donation enabled the Auglaize County Historical Society to acquire Armstrong's boyhood home in Wapakoneta, Ohio. The purchase was finalised on October 19, 2026. The society plans to restore the house to its appearance during Armstrong's childhood and hopes to open it for public tours by 2030, the centenary of his birth.Schreiber, a retired pilot who spent 20 years in the US Air Force before retiring from American Airlines, stepped in after learning that the property was for sale and that no one had come forward to preserve it. He also remembered his father's advice to “make a mark in life,” something he said had stayed with him.Why Schreiber ...