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Amelia Earhart: Living Life to the Fullest

 

Although she was the 16^th woman to receive her aviator’s license, Amelia Earhart laid claim to being the first women to fly across the Atlantic and the Pacific. Born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart’s first experience with an airplane at a state fair as a 10-years-old was unimpressive.

It wasn’t until Dec. 28, 1920, when she took a ride in an airplane that she knew she wanted to fly. Always a tomboy, Earhart continued to flout tradition by taking up aviation as a hobby. She used her earnings from odd jobs to pay for lessons and in 1922, with her savings and assistance from her sister, Muriel, and her mother, Earhart bought her first airplane, a Kenner Airster. She named the bright yellow plane, “Canary,” and used it to set her first record when she reached an altitude of 14,000 feet.

When her parents divorced, Earhart returned to the east and was hired as a social worked at Denison House in Boston, MA. In April of 1928, Earhart received a phone call that at first she thought was a prank. The caller asked Earhart to be the first female passenger on a transatlantic flight. Earhart, along with a pilot and co-pilot, left for the 21-hour flight from Newfoundland to Wales on June 17, 1928. After returning to the U.S., the crew was thrown a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception hosted by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

It was this fateful trip that kicked Earhart’s flying career into high gear and introduced her to future husband, George Putnam, a coordinator of the flight. He had already published stories about Charles Lindbergh and believed Earhart’s journey would be a bestseller. After the flight, she wrote the book 20 Hours – 40 Minutes.

Their friendship grew while they were planning the flight and they were married on Feb. 7, 1931. Unlike most marriages of the time, Earhart considered hers a partnership and she maintained her maiden name for her flying career. Putnam organized her flights and her public appearances.

On May 20, 1932, five years after Lindbergh did it, Earhart took wing on her solo flight across the Atlantic. A series of problems forced her to land in Londonderry Ireland. The first woman to receive the honor, Congress awarded Earhart the Distinguished Flying Cross.

On Jan. 11, 1935, she completed her solo flight across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, CA, the first person to do so. As her final adventure, Earhart wanted to fly around the world. Her first attempt in March of 1937 severely damaged her plane. She had the Electra rebuilt and took flight again on June 1. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed in Lae, New Guinea on June 29, with only 7,000 miles of the 29,000-mile trip to go.

Navigation on the journey had been complicated by inaccurate maps. The next hop in their flight would be to Howland Island. It was 2,556 miles away and measured only 1.5 miles long and .5 miles wide. The Electra took off at 10 a.m. on July 2. Early the next day, Earhart started radioing the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, her contact stationed right off Howland Island. At one point, Earhart asked the Itasca to take bearings on her. While the cutter sent regular messages to the pilot, it was obvious she was not receiving them. Earhart’s transmissions were faint or filled with static.

At 7:42 a.m. Earhart radioed that her fuel was running low and that she had been unable to reach the Itasca. Her final transmission came at 8:45 a.m. saying she was running north and south.

The rescue mission to find Earhart and Noonan was the largest air and sea search in naval history. Costing $4 million and covering 250,000 square ocean miles, the search was ended on July 19.

Researchers continue the search today. They believe a remote South Pacific island named Nikumaroro is Earhart’s final resting place. Evidence includes items that have been found including parts of a pocket knife and fragments of a glass jar that might have held cosmetics. The theory is that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and landed on the uninhabited island where they died as castaways.

Work With Children for Safe Social Networking 

You can’t escape social networking these days: Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and all their online cousins are everywhere. If you have children, chances are they are eager to join all their friends in cyberspace.

Worrying about their safety is natural. Work with your children so they won’t hide their online activities from you. Take these steps to help them enjoy social networking safely:

• Start with kid-friendly sites. Facebook is not  the only place for people to go. A quick Internet search will help you locate lots of sites just for children. You will want to investigate them thoroughly, of course, but they can serve as a good introduction for your children to the world of online networking.

• Talk about privacy. Have a serious discussion with your kids about guarding their personal information online. They should understand that data like their full names, address, phone number, school and birth date should be kept private for their own protection. Emphasize that once something is posted online (a message or a photo), they cannot remove it entirely even if they delete the information from their profile.

• Choose a secure password. A password that your child can remember easily may be simple for a hacker to guess. Come up with a password that includes a mix of letters, numbers and capitalization so it’s less vulnerable to attack.

• Encourage children to talk to you. Tell your children to let you know if someone online does anything to make them feel uncomfortable. If necessary, report the person to the site’s administrator. At the same time, talk about the need for your children to treat everyone with respect, online and in the real world.