Walking on Air: The Aerial Adventures of Phoebe Omlie

Epilogue

- 134 Epilogue Soon after Phoebe returned to Memphis for the last time, local columnist Eldon Roark suggested naming the Memphis International Airport for the Omlies. The Memphis chapter of the Ninety-Nines enthusiastically endorsed the idea, saying that Memphis-Omlie International “has a nice ring, don’t you think?”1 Aviation enthusiast James T. Kacarides, editor of the Memphis Flyer, the publication of the Memphis Experimental Aircraft Association, had already been working for several years on a fitting memorial for Memphis’ most famous woman aviator.2 Kacarides had widespread support from the aviation community. Groups like the Experimental Aircraft Association, the Civil Air Patrol, the Ninety-Nines, the Antique Airplanes Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and the Confederate Air Force responded enthusiastically to these efforts. First, they attempted to get the Shelby County Airport named for her in 1970, but the County Quarterly Court named it for their chairman, Charles W. Baker.3 Next, when the Mud Island Downtown Airport was relocated and hence would be renamed in 1971, Kacarides submitted a long brief outlining her career to justify the name change. It was because of the Omlies’ “unbounded energies and hard - 135 Epilogue work [that] aviation was rooted to Memphis,” he wrote. Instead, the downtown airport was named to honor local war hero Brigadier General DeWitt Spain, who died in 1969.4 This most recent call, in 1975, to include Phoebe Omlie in the title of the Memphis International Airport was rejected by the Airport Authority. Instead, they created an Aviation Historical Room in the Terminal Building “to perpetuate the memory of the Omlies.”5 The issue was raised again in the centennial edition of the Memphis Press-Scimitar in 1980 that featured a detailed article about Phoebe Omlie’s career from her high school graduation until her husband died in 1936, closing briefly with her sad end and her “battle with the bottle.”6 Kacarides responded to the Press-Scimitar with a letter to the editor that extended the highlights of her career post-1936 and suggested that the time was right to establish a lasting memorial to Phoebe Omlie.7 He proposed “the new air traffic control tower at Memphis International Airport be named in memory of Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie in recognition of her outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the field of American aviation. Towering into the sky she loved so dearly, it would be a magnificent tribute to a magni ficent woman.”8 Carolyn Sullivan, representing the Memphis chapter of the Ninety-Nines, enthusiastically endorsed the idea, adding, “I can see a beautiful bronze likeness of her, gazing skyward, on an appropriate natural stone or granite base. This object would be facing, and near, the road which passes the tower, where thousands and thousands of people would see, read, and be inspired by it.”9 While Kacarides campaigned for naming the tower for Phoebe Omlie alone, particularly emphasizing her work in government on behalf of general aviation long after her husband had died, the Airport Authority clearly preferred naming the tower for both the Omlies. In their December meeting , they officially “agreed to name the airport tower after Vernon C. Omlie and his wife, Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie, if the move is approved by Federal Aviation Administration officials.”10 In response to their inquiry, the FAA pointed out that “Federal Aviation Administration facilities are not usually named in honor of people, living or dead, in or out of aviation. As a matter of fact, it takes an act by the Congress of the United States to name a government facility after a person.”11 The Airport Authority promptly informed Kacarides that the FAA had rejected the proposal, but Kacarides saw not rejection but a suggestion that they pursue congressional action.12 He pressed that the issue be included in the next meeting’s agenda, and after a favorable vote by the Airport Authority, chairman Ned Cook contacted the members - 136 Epilogue of Tennessee’s congressional delegation to request that they initiate a bill to name the new FAA control tower “Omlie Tower.”13 Senators Howard Baker and Jim Sasser filed the bill S.896 in the Senate. Representatives Harold Ford, Robin Beard, and Ed Jones sponsored the matching bill, H.R. 3072, in the House. “A bill to designate the control tower at Memphis International Airport the Omlie Tower” easily passed the Senate in May 1981. It...