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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, this week, the U.S. Capitol will welcome a bronze statue of a determined young woman with short-cut hair, a curious smile, and a bomber hat in hand. For almost everyone around the country, this young woman is easily recognizable as the adventurer and aviator Amelia Earhart.

Amelia Earhart, the most famous woman in aviation, soared into the history books, setting flight records and breaking barriers. But before she became known worldwide as the Queen of the Air, she was the daughter of a small town in Kansas, Atchison.

Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in Atchison, KS, a rural community that had a population then of about 500 people. As a young girl, Amelia kept busy with her sister Muriel. The girls were constantly exploring their own neighborhood, climbing trees, and playing with animals. During her high school years, Amelia excelled in chemistry, which inspired her to go to medical school--a goal unthinkable for woman at the time. Her independence and ambition were evident from a very young age.

Amelia's go-getter attitude propelled her to become an innovative entrepreneur--working as a stenographer, an author, a social worker, a truckdriver, and even a fashion designer.

Later in life, when Amelia was asked how she maintained such a fervent work ethic, she stated:

The most effective way to do it is to do it.

This can-do spirit was the catalyst for Earhart's daring and fast- paced career as an aviator. Amelia fell in love with flight when she took a plane ride at a California airshow in 1920, and it wasn't long after that experience before Amelia started her first pilot lessons.

She completed her aviation courses in 1921, making her only the 16th woman in the world with a license to fly. Earhart quickly purchased her own plane and wasted no time in becoming one of the world's most notable aviators.

Following Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, interest grew to see a woman fly across the Atlantic. On June 17, 1928, Earhart took off but only as a passenger. After landing in Wales some 20 hours later, she recalled how she felt like she was ``just baggage, like a sack of potatoes,'' and added, ``Maybe someday, I'll try it alone.''

Shortly after that trip, Amelia announced she would fly the same path that she did in 1928 but this time on her own, solo. When the pilot was asked what prompted her to reattempt this flight, she stated:

There's more to life than just being a passenger.

In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight in a record time of 14 hours 56 minutes, despite being faced with a number of challenges during the trip.

Earhart continued to break records by completing the first-ever solo flight from Hawaii to California, from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and reaching the highest altitude a female pilot had ever reached at the time.

Her spirit of adventure led her to attempt the greatest feat: a flight around the world. Amelia would be the first person to attempt this by taking the equatorial route, starting in the west and making her way east. This was an astonishing 29,000-mile route, with the last 7,000 miles occurring over the Pacific Ocean.

She left with her navigator, Fred Noonan, on June 1, 1937, making stops in South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Every stop on her journey, she came closer and closer and closer to achieving her goal.

On July 2, 1937, the day of the longest leg of her journey, her quest ended too soon in radio silence somewhere over the Pacific. Intensive searches continue to this day, most recently by the renowned oceanographer and Kansan Dr. Bob Ballard, but have left the world continuing to wonder what ever happened to Amelia.

She captivated the hearts and the minds of many and inspired the next generation of pilots to love the sky in the same way she did.

Undeniably, the State of Kansas has a long history steeped in the aviation industry, but without pioneers like Amelia Earhart, our State would not be the epicenter of aviation that it is today.

Now, in celebration of her accomplishments and legacy, Amelia Earhart will join President Dwight D. Eisenhower as bronze beacons representing Kansas in our Nation's Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. Tomorrow, this Wednesday, we will unveil Amelia's statue to the world, just 3 days after what would have been her 125th birthday.

This week would not have been possible without the efforts of Jacque Pregont, Karen Seaberg, and Reed Berger, all with the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation.

Thank you for your extensive and determined efforts. This partnership has made so much progress to get us to the day that we now arrive at.

I look forward to the dedication ceremony on Wednesday and seeing Kansans fill Statuary Hall to honor and preserve Amelia Earhart's legacy.

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