I believe it was in California where my brother met him, and it might have been a little before 1980. There’s at least a small chance that the two of you were at the same show.
You’re lucky to have met so many of those people. I never did, though a former roommate met Hanna Reitsch at an airshow one time.
We used to go to EAA airshows at Healdsburg, Watsonville, and Merced. I don’t remember which show I met Pappy Boyington.
Tex Hill lived in Sherman, TX in the 1990’s so he was at many of the DFW airshows. I made the mistake of asking Tex Hill about Boyington. That was the end of our conversation. They both flew with the Flying Tigers. He and most of the other Flying Tigers hated Boyington.