Hi Everyone,

I am slowly catching up. The newsletter went out yesterday, and that is a two day process alone. If you'd like to receive the monthly Girls With Wings eZine, you can sign up here. In one of my previous posts, I talked about Wiley Post, a big supporter of early Women in aviation, the instructor to Pearl Carter (a 13 yr old private pilot in the 20s) and who is mentioned quite often in a book that I just loved: Gene Nora Jessen's "Powder Puff Derby Of 1929." He was quite a character, and contributed much to aviation. A reader of this post sent me the following information for those of you who would like to read more about Wiley Post and his life. Some of the links I added in after the fact.

Lynda...
I'm always scouting around trying to find where my websites are linked when I ran across your blog. Love it!! I want to give you a couple of links that maybe you will enjoy:

www.wileypost.com

www.taxi-strip.com

Are you aware of Cheryl Stearns? (Championship skydiver and pilot, CHERYL STEARNS of Raeford, NorthCarolina was named the 2005 recipient of the prestigious WILEY POST SPIRIT AWARD.) http://www.taxi-strip.com/CherylStearns.html

Check out these pages:

http://www.taxi-strip.com/Pearl.html(The Chickasaw Indian Pilot I wrote about earlier.)

You are correct in saying that Wiley Post supported women pilots. He was a great supporter of Amelia Earhart http://www.ameliaearhart.com/, Faye Gillis http://www.ninety-nines.org/faygilliswells.html and many others. As you know, that was very unusual for the time, but Wiley was an unusal kind of guy. At present I'm working up a book on Wiley Post's wife, Mae Laine Post...here's a bit about her

www.taxi-strip.com/Wileypostpage.html

I serve as a trustee with the Ninety-Nines Museum of Women Pilots http://www.museumofwomenpilots.com/ ....ya might say that I like "girls with wings". I have a great picture that I think you will enjoy...if I can find it I'll send it along. Please feel free to use anything you want from my two sites.

Best Regards,

-- Bob Kemper

Executive Director, Wiley Post Heritage of Flight Center

www.wileypost.org

www.hangarmail@wileyposthangar.org

Note: Faye Gillis was instrumental in creating the Forest of Friendship, which I will be inducted into this spring.

The Forest is nestled on a gentle slope overlooking Lake Warnock, on the
outskirts of Atchison. It is made up of trees from all fifty states and
thirty-five countries around the world where Honorees reside. Each tree has its own flag, and on special occasions, the Forest is ablaze with the brilliance of colors of more than 100 flags blowing in the breeze.

Who are the Honorees inducted into the Forest of Friendship?

• Women and men of all ages who have given dedicated service, leadership, friendship, and supportive effort to help others achieve aviation goals.
  
• Women and men of all ages who have been supportive and contributed to the furtherment of aviation. The Honorees need not be pilots.
  
• Pioneers in Aviation and Aerospace.
  
• Aviation writers and educators who spend their lives encouraging others to fly.
  
• Women and men of all ages who have made significant contributions to the development of aviation; and those who have established recognition for setting world aviation records.

For more information see: http://www.ninety-nines.org/fof.html