March 3, 2020 Raffles and Scholarships

The Liberty Gazette

March 3, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

On the Alaska Airmen website (alaskaairmen.org), one may find a multitude of happy faces. Not just because the photos were taken in the Last Frontier, but because this group is one that raffles airplanes and gives scholarships. Navigate to the Raffle tab and you’ll see winners over the last twenty years whose $60 ticket won them an airplane worth tens of thousands of dollars. Then punch in to the Scholarships tab to see smiling young adults looking forward to bright futures. While you’re there, be sure to click on About to see a snapshot of their very cool headquarters, located on a tiny island in Anchorage. Then it will all make sense that their address is Floatplane Drive.

Back to the Lower 48, the Puget Sound Flyers, a nonprofit flying club, makes it their mission “to render aid to young people who were fortunate enough to have survived cancer, and, through their hard work, recovered and persevered, despite financial hardships imposed on them and their families by the cost of care and family commitment,” (pugetsoundflyers.org). The Puget Sound Flyers offer scholarships for post-secondary education to assist as many young cancer survivors as possible pursue their passion—whatever it may be. They, too, raffle off airplanes to support their mission.

Going east from Puget Sound to Topeka, Kansas, a city with significant aviation history, the American Flight Museum will raffle a 1976 Citabria, an aerobatic airplane similar to the one Charlie Grabein used to fly here in Liberty. Tickets are $50 and you have until 1:00 p.m. June 1 to buy one of the 4,000 chances for sale. All proceeds go to support the museum, aeronautical education, and aviation programs. You are hereby forewarned, however, that if you visit their website to see the Citabria (americanflightmuseum.com), you’ll practically slobber over their photos of vintage aircraft. Next thing you know, you’ll be heading north to visit in person. We don’t blame you!

Closer to home is Ranger Airfield, in Ranger, Texas, “Accepting aviators since 1911.” The folks there host a weekend-long camp-out fly-in every October (it’s one of our favorite fly-ins, by the way). They also raffle one airplane a year. This year, one holder of a $50 ticket will win a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub. But hurry, they’ve almost sold out! And talk about pictures. Hoo-boy! One could linger long on that site—rangerairfield.org. Jared Calvert was only about 20 or so when he founded the Ranger Airfield Foundation to preserve the airfield and it’s rich Texas history.

The East Central Ohio Pilots Association combines raffle and scholarship for some sweet deals. If your $50 ticket doesn’t win the sparkling clean 1967 Cessna 150 this year, you could win a $2,500 scholarship for flight training. All proceeds from raffle ticket sales support their Safety and Education Foundation which has awarded over $40,000 in flight scholarships. Find out more on ecopapilot.com.

With a little luck, anyone can turn a few bills into a world of adventure.

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