'Nebraska's Aviatrix' Evelyn Sharp barnstormed Golden Plains

Friday, June 23, 2006
Evelyn Sharp of Ord, 1919-1944, left, is listed as the "world's youngest commercial pilot" in her biography in the Nebraska Hall of Aviation Fame. She soloed in 1936 and obtained her commercial license in 1938. Evelyn Sharp top, flew a Curtiss Robin airplane before joining the WAFS -- the U.S. Army Air Force's elite "Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron" in 1942. Culbertson farmer/rancher Willard Hoyt, above, tells author Diane Ruth Armour Bartels about meeting Evelyn Sharp at the McCook airport in about 1938. "I went out to buy a ride from her," Hoyt said, explaining that Sharp was barnstorming around Nebraska. Bartels has written Sharp's biography, "Sharpie: The Life Story of Evelyn Sharp, Nebraska' Aviatrix." (Nebraska Hall of Aviation Fame, Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

A rural Culbertson man remembers flirting with a young female barnstorming pilot when she flew into McCook in 1938.

"I hinted at asking her out for the evening," 90-year-old Willard Hoyt said, with a grin and a chuckle, during the Nebraska State Fly-In in McCook Friday and Saturday. But, he remembers well, Evelyn Sharp's dad said "no."

So Hoyt, who was 19 or 20 at the time, just went for a plane ride with the young Nebraska pilot who would later give her life for her country.

About two years before her barnstorming stop in McCook, a 17-year-old Evelyn Sharp, "Sharpie," had earned her private pilot's license, and was the youngest female pilot in the United States. Businessmen in Ord had made the down payment on a plane for her, and she was making the payments by performing barnstorming stunts and "hopping passengers" at air shows across the country.

Diane Ruth Armour Bartels of Lincoln researched the life of Evelyn Sharp, Nebraska's first female aviatrix, after flying into an air show in Ord in 1973. There, in a hangar, she discovered a stash of newspaper clippings and letters about the life of a Nebraska pilot who knew, at the age of seven, that she "needed to be a pilot."

Evelyn Sharp's friend and mentor, a 70-year-old Dr. Glen Auble, told Bartels in Ord that day that he wanted to ensure that "Evelyn Sharp is not forgotten." He asked Bartels to write her biography.

Over the next 23 years, and during a sabbatical from teaching, Bartels researched Sharp's love of flying and her life cut short by a flying tragedy during World War II. "By 1996, Evelyn Sharp's life story was in print," Bartels said.

Through her research, Bartels said, she learned about Sharp's character, her compassion, commitment, perseverance and patriotism. "She would never forget her upbringing in Ord, or her friends," Bartels said of Sharp.

Bartels said that Sharp was born in Montana in late 1919, and as a young girl growing up in Hastings, Nebraska, pointed at an airplane in the sky and said, "I want to drive the airplane."

Evelyn and her adoptive parents moved from Montana to Nebraska, to Hastings and Ericson, and then to Ord in 1930.

Bartels said Sharp belonged to the Camp Fire Girls and the Methodist-Episcopal Church. She taught swimming on the North Loup River, captained her high school soccer team and marched with the high school band that performed for Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies.

"She was fun-loving, competitive and athletic," Bartels said, and was voted the "best girl athlete" by her graduating class at Ord High School in 1937.

Sharp was rarely seen without a dog, and an adopted stray named "Scotty" logged more more than 100 hours of flying, Bartels said.

In 1935, to pay an overdue board-and-room bill owed to Evelyn's father, Jack Jefford of Broken Bow (an Alaskan bush pilot) gave 15-year-old Evelyn Sharp her first flying lesson, in a three-cylinder Flyabout. She would fly seven different planes before soloing in February 1936, Bartels said.

Sharp was 17 years old when she earned her private pilot's certificate in November 1936, and became America's youngest girl pilot.

Businessmen in Ord made the down payment on her first plane, and also raised funds so she could earn her commercial license, in May, 1938.

During her barnstorming days -- over 2 1/2 years -- she flew 5,041 people, charging $1 per ride, but only 75 cents for high school girls. A "good day," Sharp noted in her log book, was 90 passengers.

Bartels said Sharp kept a record of everyone who ever flew with her. Her first passenger, Bartels said, was her mother, Mary "Mrs. J.E." Sharp, who preferred to fly "than fix four or five flat tires between Ord and Grand Island."

By June 1940, Evelyn Sharp had earned her flight instrument certificate and was teaching Civilian Pilot Training Program lessons at the Black Hills Airport in Spearfish, S.D. "Her students remember her as patient, and very skilled," Bartels said. "She was respected as a firm, fair instructor."

In 1941, Sharp was the youngest of 10 women flight instructors in the United States and moved to Bakersfield, Calif.

Bartels said that by September 1942, Sharp had logged more than 1,450 hours of flying time, and the U.S. Army Air Force was conducting experiments to see if women pilots were "strong enough, brave enough and smart enough" to fly military airplanes.

The Air Force wanted women pilots to ferry trainer planes to training fields in the U.S., and from factories on the West Coast to the East Coast, for shipment and flights overseas.

"This would free up men for combat," Bartels said. "There was lots of pride and lots of camaraderie among the WAFS," Bartels said, "the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron." The women pilots, however, were never commissioned, and were not allowed veteran benefits until 30 years later.

Evelyn Sharp's first flight was in a PT-19. She also flew P-51s, and on April 3, 1944, was delivering a P-38 to New Jersey. At Cumberland, Pa., she took off, and spectators reported seeing black smoke belch from one of the plane's engines.

Sharp missed Beacon Hill and set the plane down near trees, but the nose gear caught in the ground, and Sharp was thrown out.

Evelyn Sharp's life ended there, on a hill in Pennsylvania, near the bent and broken P-38.

Evelyn Sharp was buried in Ord, just nine years after her first flight.

About four years later, Ord dedicated its airport to the memory of Evelyn Sharp and named it, "Sharp Field." The airport's sign includes the propeller from a P-38.

Evelyn Sharp is one of only two women inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Aviation Fame. (The other woman is Pauline Hawks, who is listed with her husband, Earl, for their founding of an airport near their family farm at Bruning. With their flight school and crop spraying business, Earl and Pauline Hawks accumulated more than 27,000 and 1,800 flight hours respectively.)

Bartels said that Sharp proved that there was a place for women in military aviation, and, because of the efforts of Sharp and the WAFS pilots, women pilots are involved today even in combat flight.

"A woman who loved to fly could no more than

Evelyn Sharp did," Bartels said. "She gave her life for her country."

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