You might expect the manager of the Bill Hubbs Airport in Pecos to be a big, rough-talking guy wearing a leather jacket and chomping on a cigar. This is hardly the case. The manager is a woman who weighs about a 100 pounds and is dressed like she's on a picnic.
Actually, that's what she considers her job: a picnic. She loves it. Her name is Isabel Blanchard. She is not from these parts.
"Across the pond and then some," she said. "I was born in Tanzania and raised in Kenya, on the east coast of Africa. I came to the states because of opportunity. They say go west, so I did and here I am 30 years later."
She still carries that lilting accent common to people who speak the King's English. She got interested in flying about the time she was learning to drive.
"When I was 18, I took my father to the airport in Mombasa, Kenya. While we were waiting for his flight, just out of the blue I told him I would really like to learn how to fly. He sat down his newspaper, looked at me and said, 'we'll have to organize that.' I learned to fly in Kenya, got my private pilot's license and the instructor suggested I do further study in the U.S. if I wanted to make a living flying."
She learned about a flight school in South Carolina that had an intensive course that lasted six months. She did class work in the mornings, flew in the afternoons and was certified in several levels of flying. When she finished the school she sent out 200 job applications.
"I got an answer from somebody in Beaumont that had a flight school. So I got on a Greyhound bus and went there. They hired me and I worked there for a while. A friend of mine from El Paso told me there were good opportunities in West Texas, so I put out some feelers and ended up in Monahans to teach flying. I arrived with my blue Samsonite suitcase and $113 to my name. After working awhile I started freelancing. I leased an aircraft, then bought an aircraft. I was a flight instructor and pilot for hire. Anybody who needed a pilot, I was there."
An older couple had been managing the airport in Pecos for 13 years. She helped them for a couple of years, then they retired.
"I put in my bid to manage the airport, along with 14 other people. I think the city council took a big risk. I was all of 23, a foreigner, a young girl and they gave me a chance. This was in 1985."
Isabel has developed all sorts of programs for young people with the intent of one day getting them in the pilot's seat.
"I have some 300 kindergarten children out here every year. We put every one of them in the cockpit of a small Cessna. They sit in the airplane, use the controls, look around the airport and visit the hangars. Years later, some of those kids who are graduating from high school come out here to learn how to fly."
Source: http://www.mywesttexas.com
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