RISING ABOVE IT, Edna Gardner Whyte by Ann L. Cooper

This is the story of the life of an air racer, a flight instructor, and an aviation entrepreneur. This book is autobiographical, as told to Ann L. Cooper.

Edna Gardner Whyte wanted to fly from the time she was a girl - but as one born in an era when women could not even vote, she found that earning her wings was a constant struggle against male chauvinism and prejudice. When Whyte went to be tested for her pilot's license in 1931, the government inspector told her he had never licensed a woman and didn't want to start.

Denied the chance to fly for the military, Whyte taught military pilots. Refused employment by the commercial airlines, she trained hundreds of students for their cockpits. Most of all, she poured her zeal into daredevil racing. Whyte won her first air race in 1933 and earned more than one hundred air racing trophies. She served as the International President of The Ninety-Nines.

In her late sixties, Whyte planned to start an airport in Texas but was denied a bank loan. Undeterred, she borrowed money from friends and blazed a runway across a cotton field. She built her airport into a successful business and lived in a house attached to a five-plane "garage." She was elected to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame for her business acuity. At the age of 83, she said, "When I grew older, I knew I could go to an old peoples' home, but I wanted one with a runway at the door. I already have that. Why should I move?"

Edna was born in 1902, made her first solo flight in 1931, and logged more than 30,000 flying hours in the cockpit. She was honored with the Charles Lindbergh Lifetime Achievement Award and was the first woman elected as an Honorary Member of the Order of Daedalians.

Published:	Orion Books, a division of Crown Publishers
Price:	$20.00
ISBN:	0-517-57685-6
	Hardcover, 257 pages 9.25 by 6.25-inch book Includes 16 pages of black and white photographs
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