Each week, we’ll bring you a selection of notable stories that happened this week in Dayton history, chronicled by the same newspaper that continues to serve the community today.
Here are some headlines from the week of Feb. 22-28, 1976.
Feb. 22, 1976: Southern State College sprouts on airbase
Southern State General and Technical College to serve Adams, Brown, Clinton, Fayette and Highland Counties was chartered in February, 1975. The newspaper did a story promoting a new north campus for the school a year later.
Big blue and red buttons with the words “Think Southern State College” were circulating around the area when SSC opened its doors in September, 1975. The school was located in the barracks at the former Clinton County Air Force Base, later called Wilmington Airpark.
Southern State College was a state-subsidized, two-year college at the time. It is now called Southern State Community College.
To promote SSC, the general and technical school was playing up the Bicentennial - its nickname was the “Patriots,” the school colors were red, white and blue, and the old barracks that were now school buildings had names like Hancock Hall and Jefferson Hall.
In those days, SSC was the only college in Ohio that taught truck driving.
SSC had its north campus there and its southern facility about 35 miles away near the village of Macon. There were 750 students.
While SSC was designed to give two years of liberal arts education or technical training to local students, its doors were open to anyone from anywhere. Prospective students didn’t even need a high school diploma.
SSC had a cooperative arrangement with Wilmington College for all members of its faculty. The college had a teaching staff of 70 at the time.
Other courses offered were reupholstering, diesel engine maintenance, electrical wiring and child care. It also had an aviation ground school at Hillsboro.
Feb. 24, 1976: Teen has wings: Youngest pilot in United States flies with reporter
“It’s really a great thrill,” Tammy Carpenter told her passenger at 2,000 feet over Piqua on her 17th birthday. “Finally, I’m able to fly with people, instead of by myself.”
Carpenter had just taken off from the Piqua Airport with reporter Bill Fox on what was only her second flight as a licensed pilot — probably the youngest licensed pilot in the United States.
She had just turned 17, the minimum age for obtaining a private pilot’s license. She already had passed her flight test at Dayton Municipal Airport as well as the written exam.
“It was unusual for Tammy to get an early flight test, before her 17th birthday,” her father, commercial pilot Richard Carpenter explained. “I had to almost beg on my hands and knees.”
Carpenter had taken her first airplane ride when she was three weeks old. On her 16th birthday, she was ready to solo for her student pilot’s license and to win her wings just as her brother, Rick, and sister, Kathy, had done on their 16th birthdays.
She had logged 90 hours in the air. The minimum for a pilot’s license was 40.
As for the future, Carpenter said, “I want to become a flight instructor.
“You have to be 18. I want to get my instrument rating first...I can get it while I’m still 17.”
Carpenter began her final approach to the Piqua Airport runway. “It’s going to be kind of a bumpy landing,” she cautioned. “I thought I’d give you a fair warning.”
Feb. 25, 1976: Miami Valley club members collect imported cameras
Collectors of coins, stamps and beer cans were numerous, but there were only about 70 people in the Dayton area who collect Leica cameras in 1976.
A Leica is a small, German-made 35mm camera which went into production in 1924.
Roger Pelham was president of the fairly exclusive Miami Valley Leica Society. Pelham used Leica’s when he started taking pictures in 1936 and had never lost his affection for the camera over the years when he became a professional working in the photo industry.
A Leica was more than a camera to the 70 members of the local group, and was worlds away from the common box camera. Leica’s were one of the favorites of photojournalists and hobbyists.
The exclusivity of the Leica promoted personal acquaintances, said Pelham. Nearly everywhere Pelham had traveled, there had been someone who shared his interest in the cameras.
Outside of a certain amount of snob appeal, why did the cameras attract loyal followers, in spite of a very high price?
“It’s developed this thing that you can’t really define, and you can’t go out and buy. It’s the love of a fine tool, of a fine piece of machinery,” Pelham said.
And, of course, some cameras are true collector’s items, valued at thousands of dollars.
One club member owned a camera with an infamous history.
“That one’s a very famous Leica, a III-B, that was used by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer,” Pelham said.
Another member of the Dayton group owned a rare specially-made model, gold-plated and upholstered with lizard. Only five were ever produced.
Between collecting and trading, the Leica Society members did find time to take pictures. The meetings, held the third Wednesday of each month in the Brown Derby on N. Main Street, revolved around a picture-taking subject or show. Members competed within the club for prizes and prestige.
Sometimes they simply presented travel pictures to each other.
Feb. 28, 1976: Smothers brothers as Wright brothers on Broadway
It may have been a flight of fancy which never got off the ground, but Wilbur and Orville Wright seemed to be about to fall in love, and on Broadway, in 1976.
“There definitely will be a romantic interest for both of them,” said William F. Brown, a New Yorker who wrote the prize-winning Broadway smash, “The Wiz,” and was putting together a musical comedy called “Wilbur and Me.”
Brown said he and a friend, Judd Woldin, who wrote the music for the prize-winning musical, “Raisin,” were hashing over ideas four years prior when they decided to do a play about the Wrights.
Since every musical needs some romance, there was a problem finding a few girls in the brothers’ lives, Brown admitted.
Brown said he’s created a love affair for each brother. “Orville has an affair with a girl who was a secretary and wrote him love notes,” he said. “Wilbur had a brief romance with a woman aviator he met in Paris when he was trying to sell the airplane there.”
He already knew who he wanted to play Orville and Wilbur. “How about Tom and Dick Smothers as the Wright Brothers?” he asked. “They’d be perfect for the part.”
“That sounds like a neat idea for a play,” said Tom Smothers from Las Vegas, where he and his brother were performing. “It’s nice of Brown to consider us. I’m sure that when the time comes to talk, we’ll listen.”
“Why not,” commented the oldest living relative of the Wright brothers, Ivanette Miller. “I think Tommy looks like Wilbur and Dick looks like Orville.”
However, Mrs. Miller said she had her doubts about the romance in the musical.
“When they put the romance in, that’s stretching things a bit,” she said. “I never knew of a romantic interest for either one of them.”
Orville and Wilbur had been portrayed by historians as serious-minded inventors, dedicated to the development of the airplane. Mrs. Miller said they just got so involved with their work that they forgot romance.
Mrs. Miller said the idea of her Uncle Orv and Uncle Will singing and dancing isn’t so far fetched, though.
“They were always singing while they worked in their bicycle shop,” she said. “Wilbur was a good bass and sang in a singing group. Both of them played musical instruments.”
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