by N3322G » Wed Apr 21, 2010 8:57 pm
Al, thanks for the kind comments.
As an advocate who honors the past and invests in the future, I doubly appreciate your sentiments as you personify both.
Nothing quite like a death to put things in perspective. Today I learned of the death of an early ICS member, Velda King Mapelli. She was mentioned on page 45 of the April Flyer. I met her as the 260B race pilot with her daughter Stef as her co-pilot. Mom and I regularly competed against them and over time she became like a second race mother. I share this because after her N9071P 260 was consumed in a shop hangar fire when it was in to have its engine overhauled, she moved on and bought a plane her husband, Gene, found to be more comfortable, a Cessna 414. She stayed an ICS member for a number of years in tribute to what was a gorgeous plane. Sunday, she was walking on a trail before dinner and was hit by a cyclist and died of her injuries. She was 80-something.
If Velda were on this Forum, she would be blunt, "It is not about the magazine, it is about the airplanes." It takes courage to change old ways and adopt new directions. My younger sister inherited the mail order gift catalog Mom founded, Tailwinds, Catalog of the Skies. The economics of publishing the catalog became unmanageable with postage and paper cost increases. Rather than stay with the now-doomed business model her mother used, she showed courage and became an early adopter of the internet shopping business model. Tailwinds.com honors the past but invests in the future.
The ICS Board can learn from these women who showed courage and made changes when changes needed to be made.
Pat
Patricia Jayne (Pat) Keefer ICS 08899
PA-39 #10 Texas