7:15am | Long Beach Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske announced at a special assembly today that Saint Joseph High School, a four-year Catholic high school for young women in Lakewood, will show Breaking Through the Clouds: The First Women’s National Air Derby on Monday, November 21, 2011.
Schipske helped arrange the event and serves as the Chair of the Committee to Commemorate the Centennial Anniversary of the First Transcontinental Flight, which is sponsoring a series of events leading up to the December 10, 2011 dedication of the Wright “Vin Fiz” that landed in Long Beach 100 years ago.
The documentary is the recipient of an Indie Award of Excellence and the David Ponce Award for Best Documentary Film of the Festival at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival. It has also earned filmmaker Heather Taylor the Ninth Annual Combs Gates Award, given by the National Aviation Hall of Fame. The film recounts the First Women’s National Air Derby, a race from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio, held during the summer of 1929. Twenty women, including Amelia Earhart and Long Beach’s first female pilot Gladys O’Donnell, took to the skies — and proved they were good pilots.
“One of the reasons I produced [this film] was in the hopes that young women would look upon the pilots of the derby as role models and be inspired to follow their own path,” says Taylor. “The women in the derby, many in their young twenties, followed their passion, despite how odd it may have seemed to others in that era. 82 years later, they are still influencing people because of their choices.”
A group of pilots from the Long Beach Ninety-Nines will be at the assembly to share their experiences with the female student body of Saint Joseph at the conclusion of the film.
While the event is not open to the public, Heather Taylor’s DVD may be purchased at www.breakingthoughtheclouds.com.
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