New Rockford alumnus flies all over the world and above home

Sometimes, childhood dreams really do come true.

Jason Lafontaine graduated from New Rockford High School in 1988 with dreams of becoming a pilot. Decades later, there aren't many places on Earth he hasn't flown to.

According to LaFontaine, his earliest memories of wanting to be a pilot stem from a local crop duster near Bremen, who "used to buzz us all the time." He began admiring pilots ever since, and one day hoped to become one.

However, as Lafontaine put it, "when you look at a kid in a '73 Camaro in 1988, and he says he wants to be a pilot, the people of New Rockford can be kind of skeptical."

Lafontaine pursued his dream regardless, but it didn't come easy. While attending flight school at the University of North Dakota, he was forced to work construction jobs to make ends meet and keep his dream alive.

But after graduating in 1996, he was finally able to leave those jobs behind, or more accurately, thousands of feet below him. Lafontaine began his career cloud seeding in Kansas, which means flying into thunderstorms and releasing substances that can reduce the size of hailstones, and alter a storm's precipitation.

Lafontaine later got a job with Great Lakes Airlines, where he often found himself flying in and around the Dakotas. The job also brought him to his current home in Billings, Mont., and it's where he discovered his preference of flying cargo more than passengers.

"The boxes don't complain, ya know?" LaFontaine said, in jest.

Now, LaFontaine works for Kalitta Air, an American cargo airline, where he's been for approximately 16 years. His job has him taking cargo around the world. In fact, If you can name a place, he's probably been there.

"I've been all over," said LaFontaine. "China, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Africa, Europe, South America. I just did a whole bunch of South America."

Kalitta Air also does military contracts, meaning that even war zones, most notably Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, are no stranger to LaFontaine.

All that exotic travel doesn't mean he's forgotten where he came from, however. As he descended towards Minot, N.D. in his Boeing 747, he snapped a picture of New Rockford from 28,000 feet in the air.

All totaled, LaFontaine estimates that he's logged more than 16,000 hours flying planes, which has meant a lot of time away from his wife and three kids. Going from timezone to timezone is also a struggle, he said.

However, LaFontaine's travels have also given him a kind of perspective few have known.

"You gain a new perspective on things too," he said. "Like when you're in Delhi, and you see a naked 6-year-old covering up his 3-year-old brother with a blue tarp, and then you come home and your kid wants the new iPhone.

After flying for two weeks, Kalitta Air usually gives him the rest of the month off, a schedule that LaFontaine says has worked well. He even has time to coach football in the fall.

When asked what advice he has for young students who might also have a job that seems "out of reach" for rural North Dakotans, LaFontaine said, "I know exactly what to tell them: Don't let anybody tell you there's something you can't do."