Teen to Honor Tuskegee Airmen, Make History Featured in L.A. WATTS TIMES

Kimberly Anyadike plans to fly to the East Coast on June 29, making her the youngest black female to fly an airplane across the country. Part of her reason for the feat will be to pay tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen. Pictured: (left to right) Levi Thornhill, a Tuskegee Airman, and Kimberly Anyadike.

L.A. WATTS TIMES

May 07, 2009

ANDRE BRISCOE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Fifteen-year-old Kimberly Anyadike plans to land her single-engine red-tail Cessna plane at a Phoenix airport next month and visit well-wishers and Tuskegee Airmen — and in the process, make history.

The flight would make Anyadike, a student at the Compton-based Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum, the youngest black female to fly an airplane across the country, but that is not the sole reason why she wants to make the trip.

“I’m extremely excited because I’ll be paying tribute to the great Tuskegee Airmen,” said Anyadike, an Inglewood resident. “They were told that they didn’t have the cognitive development to be able to fly a plane, and they proved everyone wrong. They didn’t lose a single bomber in battle.”

Anyadike, along with safety pilot Ronnel Norman and Tuskegee Airman Levi Thornhill, will take off for the East Coast on June 29, and arrive in Newport News, Va., on July 4.

The flight could take more than 15 hours to complete, depending on weather, said Norman, a 26-year-old graduate of the program.

The trio is expected to make at least four stops to visit Tuskegee Airmen during the trip. The famed World War II pilots plan to sign the plane during each stop.

Thornhill, 86, a 22-year Air Force veteran who served as a crew chief, mechanic and flight instructor during the war, said he is looking forward to the flight and for the chance to advise Anyadike.

The Tuskegee Airmen are mentors to the flight students at Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum, which, since 1997, has offered flight lessons in Los Angeles to hundreds of at-risk kids to give them an alternative to joining gangs. They have always stressed the importance of education, Thornhill said.

“What we want to do is get them motivated and to emphasize to them that it is important to have objectives in life,” he said. “A lot of these kids don’t have the same advantages that others have.”

As part of the trip, Anyadike and others from the museum plan to meet with members of Congress, including Congresswoman Laura Richardson and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both of whom have supported funding the program.

“We want to offer these kids an alternative to crime and drug use. We want to refocus and reshape their lives,” said Robin Petgrave, the founder of the nonprofit flight school. “That is part of the reason why we are going on this trip. To let (politicians) know that this is a dynamic, viable outreach program that touches the lives of thousands of kids.”

The organization is set to receive long-awaited federal funding — nearly $500,000 — to upgrade computers, software, replace aging equipment and hire additional staff, he said.

“There are a lot more services that we can provide to kids, but right now we are limited,” Petgrave said. “There are a lot of educational components that we have never had the funding to put in place.”

In 2005, Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald announced that the program would receive about $1.85 million in federal funding for improvements and expansion. But President George W. Bush put a hold on the funding after hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

A demonstration is likely when the group visits Washington, and it is possible that the visitors could meet with President Barack Obama, Petgrave said.

Earlier this year, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., called earmarked money for Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum an egregious use of tax payer dollars. Anyadike, a ninth grade student at Los Angeles Center of Enriched Studies, wants the opportunity to talk to Flake and explain what the program has done for her and hundreds of inner-city kids in Los Angeles.

“Because earmarks circumvent the normal spending process, they aren’t subject to the scrutiny that all federal spending ought to receive,” Matthew Specht, Flake’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement to the L.A. Watts Times. “Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum may be an outstanding organization, and it sounds like it is, but Congressman Flake does not support federal funds in the form of an earmark for the organization.”

Kimberly Anyadike

If Flake accepts the invitation to meet with Anyadike and the Tuskegee Airmen in Phoenix, he will better understand the program and its mission, Petgrave said.

“We are definitely going to invite him so that he can get to know this program a little bit, and so he will understand that this is not an egregious use of federal money,” he said. “This program will actually save the government money because it keeps the kids out of the criminal justice system. It gives these kids gainful employment so that they don’t become part of the welfare system … We are not just a museum; we are an active after-school outreach program that is needed in communities all across the country.”

From Virginia, the trio will meet with actors Lou Gossett Jr., John Schneider and Omarosa, all of whom serve on the board of directors for the museum. They will then take a commercial flight on July 7 to Washington, D.C.

Anyadike is following the accomplishments of her older sister Kelly, who last year became the youngest black female to solo fly four aircraft in a single day. Kimberly Anyadike, who wants to attend Harvard, Yale or Stanford and dreams of becoming a cardio vascular surgeon, said she will always be a pilot.

She is happy to call the Tuskegee Airmen who have mentored her and others in the program friends. The flight, she said, is a gift to Thornhill, who she said always wanted to fly “from sea to shining sea.”

“The whole thing is a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen,” she said. “They are all very sweet and I love all of them. They are very knowledgeable. I just love to sit at their feet and talk to them.”