Offers Turbine Flight Time To Selected Students

AOPA President Phil Boyer on Tuesday presented Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a check for $20,000 for the AOPA Career Pathways Scholarship fund. Each year, AOPA contributes a percentage of the AOPA membership dues of every Embry-Riddle alumni to an AOPA scholarship for students in ERAU's Aeronautical Science program. Some 4,800 Embry-Riddle graduates are AOPA members.

Boyer presented the check during a Pilot Town Meeting in Daytona Beach, Florida, home of one of the university's two residential campuses. Boyer also gave some "right-seat" time in AOPA's CitationJet to four students selected for academic excellence and campus involvement, allowing each to log a takeoff or landing.

Dr. Tim Brady, Dean of the College of Aviation, accepted the scholarship donation on behalf of the university. Some 125 ERAU students and local aviators attended Monday's Pilot Town Meeting.

AOPA established the AOPA Career Pathways Scholarship in 1997 and to date has given some $110,000 to the fund. The university applies the contributions to an endowed scholarship to help aviation students.

This year's scholarship winner is Kristen Brown from Dallas, Texas. Now a senior, she was inspired to pursue a career as an airline pilot from a Young Eagles flight in seventh grade.

Brown holds a commercial multiengine certificate and is working to complete her flight instructor rating. As a Continental Airlines intern, she completed 24 hours of MD-80 training. She is the president of the ERAU chapter of Women in Aviation and has been on the Dean's List every semester.

The AOPA Career Pathways Scholarship is part of a landmark alliance between the world's largest aviation organization and the leading aviation university in the United States.

AOPA membership provides ERAU students with real-world resources that complement their academic training and pursuit of aviation careers. Students are offered special learning opportunities, including on-campus Air Safety Foundation safety seminars, and opportunities for internships at AOPA and at the Air Safety Foundation in Frederick (MD).

Each year a select handful of students are given the chance to fly with Boyer and take the controls of N4GA, the AOPA CitationJet. This is the eleventh year in a row that Boyer has gone flying with ERAU students. This week he flew with Joe Buck Anderson, Brady Harp, Taras Hryniw, and Kristen Veith from ERAU's Daytona campus.

A flight in a Piper Cub convinced Veith to become an airline pilot. She interned with Southwest Airlines, and was the winner of ERAU's Presidential Scholarship. The senior holds a commercial multiengine instrument certificate and is pursuing her CFI rating.

FMI: www.aopa.org