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Megan Mallory Rust ('79, DB)
originally went to school at Washington State University to puruse biomedical engineering. After her first year, she decided she wanted to fly planes instead and transferred to Embry-Riddle. She earned a B.S. in Aeronautical Science in 1979. She then obtained her commercial pilot's license with single and multi-engine ratings and was a certified flight instructor. Rust's father owned Rust's Flying Service at Lake Hood (now operated by her two brothers) in Anchorage, but Rust wanted to do more than fly float planes. However, in 1984 Rust was in a serious flying accident that left her in a coma for a month. Due to the effects of her injuries, the FAA would not issue a first-class medical certificate and Rust can no longer fly. She returned to Alaska after many months of physical therapy and took a couple clerical jobs in Anchorage. It occurred to her that she might like working in advertising and she enrolled in the University of Alaska Anchorage's School of Journalism and Public Communications. It was in her screenwriting class that she realized writing would be her new passion. She decided to write an aviation novel and submitted her manuscript several times before Tom Colgan, a senior editor at Berkley Publishing, accepted it and signed Rust to a 3 book deal with an option for a fourth book. The first book,
Dead Stick
, was published in 1998. Her second book was
Red Line
and it was centered around the same character as her first. It was published a year later. And her most recent novel,
Coffin Corner
(again centered around Taylor Morgan) was published in June 2000. All of her novels are aviation-related mysteries set in Alaska, a territory Rust knows well. Rust currently resides in Alaska and has not yet published another novel. -
Women Pilots of Alaska by Sandi Summer
Cheryl Stearns ('85, WW)
is an American skydiver. Stearns is noted for having won the Bronze Medal in Women's Overall Individual Style and Accuracy at the XXV World Parachuting Championships in Japan in 2000. Stearns is also noted for the most total parachute jumps made by a woman, 15,560 jumps as of August 2003, as well as the most parachute jumps made in a 24 hour period by a woman, 352 jumps from November 8-9, 1995. More recently, Stearns has been involved in a project, StratoQuest, which endeavors to break Joseph Kittinger's long-standing record for the highest altitude parachute jump ever, with a jump from at least 110,000 feet. She was also the first female member of the Army's elite Golden Knights skydiving team and was awarded the Diplome Leonardo da Vinci, the world's highest award in aerosports, for her unique achievements in skydiving. Stearns made her first jump in 1971 at the age of 17 and is currently a pilot for US Airways. -
Wikipedia
Read more about Cheryl in the Spring 2010 issue of LIFT
.
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