The Whirly Girls

I left LA and pulled into Houston on Thursday February 21st. On Friday morning I went to the airport to meet Sandra Steffensen who flew in from Orlando. She's a Whirly Girl friend from Denmark who just this month got her Green Card - Hurray !! We hope she finds a flying job REAL SOON!

We went straight to the Convention Center and started setting up the WG Booth at the Helicopter Association International annual meeting and convention. These ladies raise an incredible amount of money to support their scholarship program.

And one of their main fund raisers is the booth at HAI. Five intense days of setting up, being nice to people and taking their money, and then taking it all down, packing it up and FedExing it back "home".

Here's Bev Haug-Schaffter WG#465 the Fearless Leader of the Booth.



She actually knows where everything is and how much it costs. We usually man - woman? - the Booth with 4 volunteers. We really struggle when Bev isn't there but we kinda make it up as we go and sell a ton of stuff.

Another picture of the Booth, with Bev and Tina Schleidt, a WG from Germany.



Along with all the WG's who work the booth are a couple of husbands who have been drafted and three men whose only connection is their love of these women who are the Whirly Girls. Two of them have a business reason to be at the HAI but spend a major part of their time helping the WG's. Ian works as a Controller at the landing site, Peter is an aviation journalist and I'm simply unable to stay away from my WG friends. Check out my Blogs from March 1 and 4, 2007 for some more background.

I first met the WG's at their 1985 Banquet in New Orleans. After the dinner, 6 of them and I went down to the French Quarter. In a bar on Bourbon Street, we were asked to quiet down or leave. Yes, on Bourbon Street. I called Mary Ann on the phone the next morning and said, "I've met some WONDERFUL new friends." I partied with them once a year. When the kids got older and Mary Ann could travel with me, she fell in love with them, too. Of the 6 from 1985, I'm still in touch with three of them. And they were at the convention! TRISH - are you listening? Trish promised me a picture of the 4 of us. But I haven't received it yet.

As usual, along with meeting up with old friends, I met some brand new WG's who will continue expanding the career possibilities of women in aviation.

We said "Good By" on the 26th. But it wasn't over yet. Teen Corey, Past President of the WG's invited some of us to her ranch just north of Houston.

THAT story comes next !