Amelia Earhart

My hero is Amelia Earhart. She is my hero because she was brave, smart, and did great things during her life. The most famous thing she did was flying around the world all by herself. This may not seem as great as the things that have happened more recently, but this was a time when a woman flying around the world was a VERY big thing.

Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897. Amelia went to live with her Grandma at the age of 3, just 50 miles away from her mom and dad. She went to Ogontz College, a highly regarded school for women, where she did very well. While she was there, Amelia served as a nurse during World War 1 in 1917. In 1920, six months after her first time in an airplane, she bought a yellow Kinner Airster that Amelia called “The Canary”. That was two years before she would set the woman’s altitude record.

Amelia took an immediate liking to flying. Before she bought “The Canary”, she took flying lessons with her teacher, Anita Snook, at Kinner Fields. On October 22, 1922 Amelia set the woman’s altitude record at 14,000 feet, which was broken two weeks later by Ruth Nichols. Without her bravery and trying hard to achieve that goal, the achievements she made would not have been possible. In 1928, from June 18-19 her flight across the Atlantic Ocean took place.

Later in life, among her achievements was an auto-giro altitude record of 18,415 feet in 1931 on April 18. Her August 24-25 1932 coast -to-coast flight was the first coast-to-coast flight a woman by herself flew. Amelia flew 2,447.8 miles per hour in 19 hours and 5 minutes during that flight. President Hebert Hoover awarded her the National Geographic Society gold medal and Congress awarded her the civilian version of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Unfortunately, during her flight around the world in 1932, she disappeared. Nobody knows where she was, she may have gotten blown off course. What an awful and puzzling end. People tried to figure out what happened, but all they found were more questions. Will anybody ever really know what happened to Amelia? I don’t know. Amelia was brave, smart, never stopped trying, flew, set records, and inspired many. She was a great person.