[Rhodes22-list] College Funding: Waco Texas

[Jim White]

Hey Brad
I went to TSTI in WACO back around 1981-82 and got my A&P license.
  I also worked on my private pilot license, punching holes in the sky off 
of  that long, long runway, sometimes buzzing MCC, hoping that their 
females would pay attention. My instructors name was Ken Skinner, and he 
was doing his A&P at the same time...we became pretty good friends. I used 
my GI bill to pay for school then...

This was before I went back to college, spent a godawful amount of money 
(I'm still paying off my last student loand from grad school), and got an 
edgee-cation so that I could earn about 25% less than I did as an airplane 
mechanic.....

Jim White


At 09:11 AM 10/09/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>To All,
>
>Since we're telling college funding war stories I'll
>tell mine.  I worked as an apprentice aircraft
>mechanic all through high school and the original
>program was to finish my apprenticeship (about 6 more
>months) after graduation, and pay my way through
>school.  The very next day after graduation I lipped
>off to my mother something about how unfair it was to
>have been raised in such a small backward "one-horse"
>town and she sweetly replied, "Son, I'm sorry, your
>father and I bought you the wrong gift.  You don't
>need a watch, you know what time it is, what you need
>is a suitcase".  Two weeks later I was working in "The
>City", Decatur, IL,(about 90,000) at a larger shop and
>on my own.  In the meantime I turned 18, got my
>Commercial Pilot license, Instrument Rating, and
>finished the Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic
>apprenticeship.  I'd attended classes three days at
>Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville (SIU-E)
>when I learned that a local company was moving their
>corporate headquarters to Waco, TX and the pilot
>wasn't moving.  I knew the CEO and convinced him to
>hire me because I'd worked on the plane for two years
>(it sure wasn't based on my vast experience as a
>pilot). He let me use the plane while I was there to
>get my Flight Instructor and Instrument & Multi-engine
>Instructor ratings.  After a year in Waco I was ready
>to start college again and returned to Illinois, this
>time to SIU-Carbondale where I'd been promised a job
>flight instructing.  After finding a mobile home for
>rent near the airport and signing up for classes, I
>report for duty only to be told that "times are hard,
>money's tight, etc.".  Before I could even get a good
>pity party going my Dad called to say Mom had some
>serious health problems, had to quit her job, and they
>were sorry they couldn't help.  Out with some friends
>to drown my sorrows I ran into twin brothers from a
>wealthy Chicago suburb that had been given a Cessna
>150 by their parents.  We got the bright idea that
>they'd rent the plane to me and I'd start my own
>flight school.  I put flyers all over campus and by
>the end of the week the phone was ringing off the
>wall.  Business was so good that the company that
>offered me a job (and then didn't) along with the
>University's own flight school sicked the FAA and the
>airport authority on me to try and shut it down.  It
>didn't matter because as soon as the bills for the
>extra fuel and maintenance found their way to Chicago
>it got shut down anyway.  By then I had enough money
>to make it through the semester.
>
>A pilot friend of mine from Waco asked me to come
>after finals and take over his student load so he
>could take two weeks off.  I headed out for Texas in
>my Opal Manta, great little car that would go 97 mph
>downwind.  After five hours driving through cotton and
>bean fields I stopped in Benton, Arkansas because 1 -
>I needed gas and 2 - I couldn't see out the
>windshield.  An old man was cleaning the windshield
>while the gas was pumping and he started a
>conversation.
>
>"Where you headed son?
>
>"Texas"
>
>"Better slow er down goin through Arkladelphia boy,
>the fuzz has got the radar out"
>
>"Oh that's OK sir, I've been driving the speed limit
>all day!"
>
>He stopped what he was doing mid-squigee and looked me
>in the eye.
>
>"Son, I've been scraping bugs offa windshields for
>thirty years.  They just don't splatter like that at
>55".
>
>I laughed the rest of the way to Waco and vowed to
>myself that I'd always have enough education and job
>skills to never develop into a bug splatter expert.
>
>Six years, two universities, several jobs, and ten
>years of student loan payments later I got a BS in
>Accounting.  The rest is history.
>
>Now my boys go to college on the "My dad's an airline
>pilot, life is good, lets party!" college fund and the
>oldest is voting for Kerry.
>
>Go Figure.
>
>Brad Haslett
>"CoraShen"
>
>
>
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