Fall 2012 Issue - Colby-Sawyer College

Epilogue
by Barbara “Bobbie” Fetzer Herbert ’50, ’80
I
have always
loved airplanes
and flying.
My first flight,
at age 15, was
in a Ryan open
cockpit plane,
piloted by an Air Force
instructor who helped
me don my parachute.
From that time on, I just
wanted to be up in
the sky.
In September 1947, I
was at home in Scarsdale,
N.Y., and looking at
colleges. My father told
me he would pay for two
years at any school east
of the Mississippi, and
that I could be a teacher,
a nurse or a secretary.
But I wanted to fly, and
thumbing through the
Colby Junior College
catalog, I saw a picture of
a P-51 Mustang—a World
War II fighter—on the
quad. I was excited to learn
that the college offered
aviation courses such as
Navigation, Aerodynamics
and Meteorology and
immediately sent in
my application. I was
thrilled to be accepted
into the Aeronautical
Secretary Program.
From Room 206 in
Burpee Hall I could look
down on the quad where
that P-51 was tethered.
120 Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
The instruments had been
removed so we could
study the construction,
operation and use of each
one. We also manned
a weather station set up
outside Colgate Hall.
I talked President
(H. Leslie) Sawyer into letting
me form an Aviation
Club so we could connect
with the Dartmouth
College Flying Club. We
hosted events on campus,
and at one of these I met
my future husband, Dana.
He owned a Globe Swift, a
low-wing, retractable gear
airplane that looked like a
WW II fighter. Thus began
an exciting courtship in the
skies. Dana would pick me
up for a date and we would
fly off to dinner in the city.
As students, we flew
several times for the
instruction courses. One
of us would lay out the
flight course, another
would handle radio communications
and a third
would keep a log. Harold
Buker, a New London
man who later led the New
Hampshire Department
of Aviation, was the pilot.
He agreed to give me a
discount if I brought him
more students who wanted
to learn to fly. Occasionally
I rented a J-3 Cub on my
own and would fly low
Up in the Sky
over the campus, bank the
airplane, fold down the
side and yell to my friends
on the ground. I was
always in trouble with
my house mother,
but it was worth it.
One of my college instructors,
Dr. J. Duane Squires,
got me a job so that I
could pay for my flying
lessons and plane rentals.
I never told my parents
about my lessons and
spent my senior year flying
a plane with skis on Lake
Sunapee. Right after my
graduation ceremony,
I asked my parents to
drive me to the airstrip
in Newport, where I
climbed into a plane and
took off solo. My parents
were astonished,
but I think my father was
secretly rather pleased.
I went on to get my
private, commercial
and instrument ratings
and joined The Ninety-
Nines, the International
Organization of Women
Pilots founded by Amelia
Earhart. I feel privileged
to have known Amelia’s
sister, Muriel Reeve
Lindbergh, and many early
women pilots, as well as
some of the Womens’
Auxiliary Flying Squadron
(WAFS) who flew in WW II.
I am still a member of
The Ninety-Nines and have
logged a lot of time flying
to every state, Canada and
Caribbean islands. I envy
the women who fly for the
airlines and the military
today, though my contacts
in aviation have allowed
me to fly with the National
Guard on refueling
missions and in organizing
survival clinics for
pilots. I have met women
pilots from all over the
world, competed in air
races and piloted a variety
of aircraft. And to think
it all started with a Colby
Junior College catalog.
Jingyao Guo