How the FlyGirls Traveling Exhibit 

Took Flight

  Move mouse to scroll page. 

    What began as a few posters in the Wings Across America office gradually grew into a nationally traveling museum exhibit that introduced thousands of visitors to the remarkable story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

2000 - Beginning

    Wings Across America's first office was on the eighth floor of Baylor University's Robinson Tower, where Dr. Corey Carbonara of Baylor's Film and Digital Media Department generously donated a room in his offices with editing equipment for our use. As the project grew, so did our need for space. Over the years, Wings moved to the Baylor Credit Union Building on Fourth Street, then to the former Edgefield Baptist Church parsonage on River Street, and finally to a Baylor-owned house at 1620 South Ninth Street, just off the Baylor campus.

    With each move, the displays grew. What began as posters, photographs, and filmstrips telling the story of the WASP gradually expanded as the women themselves generously donated uniforms, purses, gloves, raincoats, and other treasured artifacts. Baylor Theatre donated our first mannequin in 2003. Period leather flying gear, goggles, and beautifully crafted scale models representing every type of training aircraft flown by the WASP helped transform our offices into a true museum exhibit.

2007 – Baylor’s Mayborn Museum, Waco Texas 

    In 2007, we invited the Mayborn Museum to visit our offices and see what Wings Across America was all about. They immediately invited us to develop an exhibit for the museum. FlyGirls of WWII opened later that year and was so well received that its run was extended into 2008.

2008–2010 – Women's Memorial at Arlington, VA

    The success of the Mayborn exhibit led to an invitation from the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. My sister and I traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with General Wilma Vaught, President of the Women's Memorial. Later, we returned with Mom to install the exhibit, which had nearly doubled in size since its debut at the Mayborn Museum. With the help of extraordinary volunteers, the installation came together beautifully. During the campaign for the WASP Congressional Gold Medal, the exhibit remained on display, allowing members of Congress and their staffs to discover the remarkable story of the WASP.

2010. 

Kalamazoo Air Zoo. Kalamazoo, Michigan

   We interviewed WASP Suzane Parish at the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a museum she had founded.  In 2010, she came to the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony and saw the FlyGirls Ehibit.  She called the director of the museum and handed me the phone.  She was absolutely determined to take FlyGirls to Michigan.  Once the exhibit was up at the Air Zoo, it became so popular they wanted to keep it permanently.  We arranged for them to keep all the printed exhibits and return the artifacts that the WASP had donated to us. 

Wings Over The Rockies, Denver, Colorado, 

    To continue sharing the story, a second traveling exhibit was created and later displayed at Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Denver, Colorado. 

Bob Bullock Story of Texas Museum, Austin, Texas 

    After FlyGirls returned from Colorado, the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum featured FlyGirls of WWII during its Veterans Day celebration from late 2014 through January 2015. While preparing the exhibit, the Bullock staff generously shared their expertise, helping Wings Across America further refine and strengthen the presentation. Four WASP attended the opening and answered questions from the audience in the big theatre at the Bullock. 

  Move mouse to scroll page. 

Lone Star Flight Museum, Houston Texas

    The exhibit later traveled to the Lone Star Flight Museum.

Air Terminal Museum, Houston, Texas

    in late 2022, to Houston's Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport—formerly Houston Municipal Airport—where the WASP first began training in 1943.

Links

FLYGIRLS at the Mayborn: Portal to Texas History

The FlyGirls Exhibit at WIMSA PDF Proposal

C-SPAN feature: FlyGirls at the Bullock (January 4, 2015)

Photos from FlyGirls at Wings Over the Rockies

Digital version of the Pass It On exhibit

Where the Exhibit Lives Today

    Nearly all of the artifacts displayed in the FlyGirls Traveling Exhibit were generously donated by the WASP themselves. When Wings Across America closed its offices, we felt those treasures should continue educating future generations.

    Today, exhibit panels, filmstrips, and selected uniform pieces are on display in the WASP Reading Room at the United States Air Force Research Office, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. The beautifully handcrafted PT-17 Stearman model donated by Roxanne Cottrell now hangs above the historic globe that once stood in General Hap Arnold's office during World War II.

Additional artifacts, records, interviews,

and digital resources were donated to:

National WASP WWII Museum, Sweetwater, Texas

Texas Woman's University Official WASP Archives, Denton, Texas

Flight of the Phoenix Aviation Museum, Gilmer, Texas

Liberty Foundation, Douglas, Georgia

Baylor University Oral History Department, Waco, Texas

    In 2026, Wings Across America began working with Jennifer Peterson, Exhibitions Curator at Humanities Texas. Jennifer first became acquainted with FlyGirls as a member of the exhibit team at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, where she helped refine the exhibit's text during its 2014–2015 display. More than a decade later, she continues to champion the WASP story by working with Wings Across America to provide Humanities Texas access to the FlyGirls exhibit panels, graphics, filmstrips, and educational materials as resources for the possible development of a future traveling exhibit. 

    We are honored to make these materials available and look forward to seeing how the story continues to inspire future generations.

The journey continues.

Fly on, Fly Girls!