NORMAN — It was hot and windy Thursday at the Max Westheimer Airport. However, that didn’t water down the feeling of cool girl power that was oozing all over the runway.
Late Thursday morning, the airport was swamped with female pilots who were participating in the 2,722-mile Women’s Air Race Classic. This year was the first time the historic race made Norman one of its stops.
Originally called the Women’s Air Derby, the WARC is in its 82nd year and has been run by aviation legends such as Amelia Earhart.
And with 100 women pilots making stops all day in Norman for food, fuel and the occasional airplane repair, the atmosphere was a little hectic.
“It has been very busy. They had bad weather at the beginning, so it’s been kind of like a nice car race where they are all bunched up. They are on their third leg today,” said Ken Carson, director of the University of Oklahoma Department of Aviation.
Representing OU with a college pennant proudly displayed in the window of the plane were seniors Robin Torres and Jennifer Scanlan.
This is the first year Torres and Scanlan have participated in WARC.
“They made us cover up our OU logo, so we’ve been putting OU wherever we can,” Scanlan said.
Scanlan and Torres were picked from a pool of other female student pilots to participate in WARC. They were chosen based on grades and an essay, according to Carson. At the end of the race, Carson said, the duo will write a journal.
“We’ve been talking about doing the race for about a year now,” Scanlan said.
Scanlan and Torres started flying at OU when they were freshmen and had to raise about $5,000 for the race, most of which was to cover fuel costs.
Returning to Norman, and all decked out in signature OU red, was Gene Nora Jessen, who started her flying career in 1956. (Of course, she tells everyone she was only 4 years old at the time.) Jessen, who was a flight instructor at OU, has flown in the WARC several times.
“This has been a spectacular stop. They have been wonderful to us here,” said Jessen, who lives in Idaho. “It’s a lot of fun. What you’re doing is you are trying to get the most you can out of your airplane. I don’t fly as much as I used to, so this is an opportunity for me to sharpen up. The biggest attraction of this air race is being with the women. We probably, five years ago, didn’t have any college teams. It is wonderful to have the young girls.”
Members of Team Bessie, Joyce Parker and Athina Holmes, are hoping to make history by being the first African American team to win WARC.
Bessie Coleman became one of the most famous women and African Americans in aviation history. “Brave Bessie” — or “Queen Bess,” as she became known — faced the double difficulties of racial and gender discrimination in the early 20th century. Coleman, however, overcame her challenges and became the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license.
“We are representing the Bessie Coleman Foundation as the first team flying in the Air Race Classic,” Parker said. “We are out here to continue her legacy as a black, female aviator because you don’t see a lot of black, female aviators.”
Bessie Coleman’s great-niece, Jilda Motley, from Tulsa, greeted Parker and Holmes in Norman.
“This is so exciting,” Motley said.
Although Team Bessie is all about representing history, they also are in it to win it.
“We are really planning to win it. We are stargazing. We have people praying for us all around the world,” Parker said.
After making a stop in Norman, the women pilots will make two more stops, one in El Dorado, Ark., and the finish line in Mobile, Ala., where each aircraft is judged “against its own handicapped cruising speed and the winning teams must follow the route as close as possible, while improving the average speed.”
Shana Adkisson 366-3544 sadkisson@norman-transcript.com
