Sharpie: The Life Story of Evelyn Sharp Nebraska's Aviatrix

As the powerful P-38 lifted off the runway at New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, on April 3, 1944, the pilot, Evelyn Sharp, knew she was in trouble. She did not need to see the black smoke belching from the pursuit's left engine. Her cockpit instruments told her all she needed to know. With not enough altitude, nor engine performance to gain that altitude, a twenty-four-year-old barnstorming pilot from Nebraska set the Army Air Forces state-of-the-art fighter down on a grassy knoll near a wooded ravine. In the throes of the Great Depression , amidst the red dust and grasshoppers borne by a wind from the Oklahoma Panhandle, a young girl named Evelyn Sharp grew up in the north central region of the Nebraska Sandhills. It was there she assimilated the values of perseverance and commitment, and acquired a sense of adventure which would clearly define her character. Evelyn would not settle for the security of a loving husband and home. She wanted to fly. Born humbly, she was adopted by a loving childless couple who moved often, finding opportunity wherever it seemed to be. In her adult life, Evelyn would learn that a woman known to her as Aunt Elsie was in fact her biological mother. Evelyn was into every activity Ord High School had to offer, and she graduated in 1937 as the best girl athlete in the history of the school. During that time, an itinerant flight instructor, behind in his room and board bill at John Sharp's rooming house, offered to give Evelyn free flying lessons. Her fate was sealed. Evelyn took her first flight when she was fifteen years old and soloed one year later. The Ord businessmen put a down payment on a brand new Taylor Cub airplane for her, and in return, she promised to repay them through promotional advertising of the North Loup Valley during barnstorming tours. It was a good deal for both. Evelyn earned her private license at seventeen and a commercial-transport at eighteen. During l938 and 1939, she made appearances at county fairs and other community celebrations, giving over five thousand people a sky-ride. For most of them, this was their very first time in an airplane. By the age of twenty, she was one of only ten women flight instructors in the United States. Evelyn taught flying to over 350 men in the Government's pre-W.W.II Civilian Pilot Training Program in South Dakota and California. By this time, she was sole support of her parents. When the War Department organized the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron in 1942, Evelyn qualified as its seventeenth member. She brought more hours to the Ferrying Command than any of the other pilots. Freeing male pilots for combat, Evelyn flew nearly every airplane in the Army Air Forces inventory. She needed to complete transition to the B-17 before earning the highest rating available. That April day in 1944 during the Lockheed P-38 delivery to Newark, New Jersey, Evelyn's plane lost power on takeoff. She did not survive the forced landing. It had been nine years since she had taken her first flight off the pasture strip along the North Loup River in Valley County. But in that short time, she had left indelible memories in the hearts and minds of those who knew her. For those who did not know her, there are impressive remembrances of a woman who has been called Nebraska's most famous aviatrix: a P-38 prop marking the site of the airport at Ord named in her memory, picture and print lining the walls of the fixed-base operations building, the Nebraska State Historical Marker at the entrance to Sharp Field, and the renaming of a portion of Highway 11 to Evelyn Sharp Road. Each year on Fathers' Day weekend, the community of Ord celebrates Evelyn Sharp Days and remembers her induction as the first woman into Nebraska's Aviation Hall of Fame and Ord High School's Distinguished Alumni. Evelyn did not let role expectations, struggles, or disappointments stand in her way. She earned the reputation of being one of the finest pilots in the nation, but more importantly she had been kind to her family and friends. She did not forget the roots of her upbringing. In 1941 when a Bakersfield Californian reporter asked her if she would volunteer if war broke out, she had replied: Certainly! There's plenty of things a woman flier can do to help the aviation branches of the service. I'll do everything I can. For Evelyn Sharp, that statement had become prophetic.

Diane Ruth Armour Bartels does not ever remember a time in her life when she did not want to fly. As a young girl growing up on a farm in northeast Nebraska, she experienced her first flight when local pilots took up farmers in order to survey conservation practices in the county. In the 1950s. the Signature Book Series introduced her to a world where women made a difference. The first biography her mother gave her was entitled The Story of Amelia Earhart. Diane read and reread it, absolutely fascinated that a young girl from Atchison, Kansas, could grow up to be a world famous pilot. Diane wanted to be just like her. Graduating as the University of Nebraska's Outstanding Senior Woman in 1964, Diane earned her private pilot license on August 12, 1966, after two months of flight training. She joined the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of licensed women pilots whose first president was Amelia Earhart. In 1975, Diane flew the 27th All Women's Transcontinental Air Race from Carlsbad, California, to Elmira-Corning, New York. Diane's interest in preserving aviation history has led to dedicatory plaques and community tributes in honor or memory of Amelia Earhart; Tuskegee Airmen, Paul Adams, Lt. Col, (Retired); Belle Hetzel, International Ninety-Nines President and aerospace education leader; and Evelyn Sharp, Nebraska's Queen of the Sky. Diane's writing has appeared in several historical aviation publications. In 1991, Diane was selected by The National Endowment for the Humanities as Nebraska's Teacher-Scholar. The award, made possible by the Dewitt-Wallace Trust Fund, carried with it a one year sabbatical and a commitment to begin the research on the life story of Evelyn Sharp. In 1997, Diane was inducted into the Forest of Friendship in Atchison, Kansas, for her contributions in preserving the history of aviation and space. The following year, her peers in the US Air Force Association named her Outstanding Aerospace Educator. An educator by profession, Diane is currently a fifth grade teacher at Brownell Elementary in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is the recipient of the Lincoln Public Schools Foundation Gold Star Award, a Cablevision Award winner, and was recently presented an honorary PTA Life Membership. She makes extensive use of biography in the classroom and serves as an aviation resource and certified FAA ground school instructor in the community. A lifelong resident of Nebraska, Diane has and will continue her commitment toward the research and preservation of Nebraska's rich aviation heritage.