Congratulations Scholarship Recipients!
Holly Adamson (Alaska Chapter Advanced Rating Scholarship)
Holly lives in Anchorage, and is enrolled at UAA Aviation Technology program. She is majoring in professional piloting, and currently working on her commercial license. She has already spent 3 years working in the business world, with a Bachelor of Business Administration from Eastern Kentucky University, and has decided that her true vocation is to be an airline pilot. Long term goal: To retire from the airlines and teach aviation at a university. With her business degree she had achieved a lucrative career in sales, but has chosen to give all this up for the love of flying and the realization monetary compensation is no substitute for self actualization. She grew up in a home with flying stories, where her dad was the Assistant Professor in the Aviation Program at Eastern Kentucky University, and it was with his encouragement that she recognized her natural ability to fly. Now she feels she is on the ‘right path’, even though it will be a long and costly one.
Dorothy Olmstead (Alaska Chapter Advanced Rating Scholarship)
Dorothy lives in Girdwood, and is currently flying with Arctic Flyers. She grew up in Midwestern suburbia and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Boston, studied abroad in the Netherlands, and worked at a Tahoe ski resort before moving to Alaska. She managed the business Fly Denali and Talkeetna Aero’s (FDTA) growing Healy branch. Her boss gave her an introductory flight in at Cessna 185 and that began a journey to receive her private ticket in Colorado. She has passed the written for instrument and is currently working toward taking the check ride this month She plans to attain her commercial, multi-engine, tail wheel and floats add-on as well. Then fly the Navajos in 2011 as second-in-command for Talkeetna Aero, and from there Grant Aviation. Her love of flying is an inspiration to her niece.
Jane McNiven (Mat-Su Student Pilot Scholarship)
Jane teaches third grade at Sherrod Elementary in Palmer. She has been teaching for 9 years and earned her Master’s in Education in 2007. A friend, Al, took her for a ride in his PA-12 bush plane and Jane was hooked. She and Al started dating and they purchased a remote parcel in the Susitna Valley and started building a cabin. They planned to marry and were almost finished with their cabin, or as they called it, their retirement home. In 2006, their life changed drastically when Al had a Brian aneurysm and a stroke. They still owned the plan and Jane said she wanted their life back. She called Mustang Air in Palmer and they put her in contact with Bill Billingsley. She started flying lessons in November, 2008. Jane said she had never been so scared in a plane as she was on her first flight in the front seat. But, determined not to quit, she continued with her lessons. She has financed her lessons out of pocket and occasionally has earned a lesson through helping out at Bill’s hangar. She has come to understand Al’s love of aviation and it has truly become a lifestyle for her. She saw an ad for a 99s meeting at the airport and decided to attend. She said they were wonderful and made her feel welcome. She is looking forward to the day when she can say “I am a pilot.”
