John Stephen | Valdosta Daily TimesChildren compete in a hula hoop competition Saturday at the Mullis family's 70th reunion.

LAKE PARK — In 1942, not long after the United States plunged headfirst into World War II, Jim Wilson lied about his age to join the Army Air Corps.

On a training flight out of Massachusetts in the winter, Wilson’s plane crashed into a mountain in Vermont.

“He lay in the snow for two days before a troop of Civil Air Patrol cadets found him,” said Joyce Melugin, Wilson’s niece. “One of them laid next to him all night until they could take him out the next morning to keep his body warm.”

Wilson was the only survivor of the crash. He lost all four limbs below the elbows and knees because of it.

Wilson was never really a family man, Melugin said, but in 1947, Wilson’s family decided to have a reunion in Valdosta. His mother, whose maiden name was Mullis, and her siblings tackled the planning.

“I think that they did it in his honor, to pull the family together (and) have him at the reunion,” Melugin said.

The event stuck, and the family kept it going year after year, decade after decade. This past weekend the current generations gathered at the 4-H Camp in Lake Park for the 70th Mullis Reunion.

The first reunion forged a new bond between Wilson and his family, said Ruthie Gay, who has been coordinating the reunions since 1999.

Wilson became a criminal defense attorney but he also was essential in keeping the reunions going by contributing money and encouraging everyone to show up, said Gay, whose maiden name was Mullis.

Melugin, 78, attended the first reunion as a 9-year-old girl. She missed some of the later reunions while she and her husband moved around the country and were “poor as church mice,” she said.

But for the past several decades, she’s made a point of traveling from her home in Austin, Texas, to the reunions, which have always been held in South Georgia.

The reunion started as a Sunday potluck after church but has turned into a full-blown Thursday through Sunday affair. The family gathers from all across the country to camp and enjoy the one time of year when they’re all together.

The Saturday dinner usually sees an average of 100-125 adults each year, Gay said.

“When people talk about family reunions, they don’t do them very often because most of the time they don’t get along well,” Joyce said.

But that’s not the case for the Mullis family.

“We all get along,” Gay, 53, said.

And they don’t have to ban any topics of conversation, she said — not even politics.

“We have Republicans, we have Democrats, but we’re all respectful of each other.”

Melugin agreed, saying she doesn’t know “of any skirmishes that we’ve had for any reason.”

After 70 years, the reunion runs like a well-oiled machine. An entertainment committee plans activities for the children, including a minnow race and hula hoop competition. A president and vice president preside over the event, serving two-year terms.

The weekend includes talent shows, trips out on the lake, silly events such as a men’s leg contest, and lots of family bonding.

“Our grandparents and great-grandparents, they just taught us the value of family,” Gay said. “Family is the most important thing on the face of this Earth. I love my family.”