Everyone...Helen has been busy, but she has been following the thread from afar, (Michigan), and has just checked in with me with some interesting first-hand information. I'll just pass on what she says:
As you know, I thoroughly enjoyed the DVD, and let Chuck know right away, no delay there. It was great to see TBX roll away and watching the Movietone newsreel was fun. Like you said, watching Tom "play" the Orbit transmitter was like playing the piano, which he also did. The commentator spent about 30 minutes with us, and like Chuck, he asked me to walk away so he could get a shot of our club jacket with the wing emblem.
As to the end of the invitationals, as I told you on the phone I checked with several old-timers and none can rercall when or why they ended as such. Perhaps the contest calendar for 1966 and 1967 in Model Aviation could give a clue. They were always in September. Our collection of magazines were damaged when the sump pump failed just before Tom Passed, and they were thrown out.
Thanks to Michael for the airport website. I started my flying career in 1966 at McKinley, about 3 miles from home and when my instructor moved to Big Beaver we moved the plane there. We got to know Annie quite well. She was a character, but also a diamond in the rough. Her father turned their bean field into the airport in 1946. Her brother and instructors kept the place going until she took over. She was a mail carrier until then. When our modeling friends lost planes due to equipment failure, which was frequently, they'd go to Big Beaver and hire Annie or instructors, sometimes private pilots, to aid in the search. Tom did it one time when one of his models and a club members flew off.
I mentioned in my first article in 2006 that it was quite common to have somebody yell out "I've lost it...while raising the transmitter above his head, (presumably to get the antenna closer to the plane...I don't think that helped much, but people did it). They would start running across the field for a ways until they realized it was useless. 
The planes often didn't crash, (right away at least), but would fly away. A bunch of guys not flying would jump into their cars and chase the plane forming a caravan to look for the lost aircraft.....Duane
She had her own private Luscomb which she kept to herself and one or two others and two Champs for instruction. In December of '67 we moved the plane to City Airport in Detroit for paved parking. Big Beaver tie downs were sometimes bogged down in mud or snow, and we liked to fly when we wanted. In 1970 Anna still had no city water, and only an outhouse. The city kept after her about that for another year or two. She brought fresh water from home every day to make instant coffee, tea or soup. The office in the Quanset hut hangar was so small that only about three people could be inside. In the late 60's and early 70's flying really took off and she finally bought a Cessna 150 for students. By then she had two full time and two part time instructors. I know the airspace was crowded at times. At City airport sometimes we were stacked up seventh to land, and had to call in way out at 18 mile to get in line. She finally had to comply with sanitation rules, and decided to build a new office, which I heard was very nice. I was past there yesterday on my way to I 75 and didn't recognize it at all. It is like an industrial park with offices and buildings of all sizes. Progress, they say. At least the city of Troy is happy, because for all those years the property was taxed at the farm tax rate.
Helen