Cenita C. Heywood, daughter of Tuskegee Airman Herbert Hosea Heywood, believes students on St. Croix who want to be pilots and aviation technicians need a chance to get some training before flying off to college or technical school.
A little more than a year ago Heywood, an Air Force veteran and charter member of the V.I. Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., organized the Youth Aviation Club, where students can get a feel for flying and careers in aviation. The club supports aeronautical training for young people. Its motto is “Molding aviation dreams into reality.”
The club exposes students to the hundreds of career opportunities in the field of aviation, Heywood said. It provides opportunities for students to attend flying camps, get grant and scholarship information, and assistance in pursuing a career in aviation. It also gives members the chance to attend annual Tuskegee Airmen and Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals conventions. And all the members earn community service hours doing required volunteering in the community.
Trevor Valery, a senior at St. Croix Educational Complex and vice president of the club, said he has benefited from membership in more ways than one. He just wishes the club had been around when he was younger.
He was recently awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the V.I. Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen to spend how he sees fit for his studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. He asked Heywood if it would be OK to spend it on a laptop, she said of course, he’ll need a laptop. He says he is majoring in aerospace engineering and aeronautical science.
Last July, Valery went to the Legacy Flight Academy at Tuskegee University in Alabama, where for two weeks he studied the history of the Tuskegee airmen and logged 15 hours of flight training. He also got exposure to careers in aviation and the military and he met aviation professionals.
“I’ve had an interest in flying and planes ever since I was a little child,” Valery says. “I always believed I was put on this earth to be a pilot.”
Kasheba Sweeney, a sophomore at Complex and media information officer for the club, says she wanted to be an astronaut when she was younger, but realizes there’s a lot of competition. The next best thing, she decided, is to become a pilot. Sweeney said she wants to enlist in the Air Force and then attend college to study aeronautical engineering.
“This club is my chance to fly and to meet people interested in aviation,” Sweeney says. “And it is a fun way to get my hours of community service in by volunteering with Ms. Heywood.”
Von Marie Velezquez, a junior in the auto mechanics program at CTEC, said she became a member to learn about aviation mechanics before she goes to technical school to study mechanics.
Ten students received training in aviation last July in the OBAP Project Aerospace Aviation Career Education Academy on St. Thomas. The students were mentored by professionals in the aviation field and given basic training in piloting and ground control operations. Last summer Cassia Smith and Orchydia Sackey also went to the ACE Academy in Orlando, Fla.
Heywood said the students are encouraged to join the Kite Club and Model Aircraft Club at CTEC. The club has 20 members and meets every other Friday in the CTEC media library. Heywood is holding a mandatory parent meeting and new member registration March 30. She said there is a lot of interest in students from other schools joining, so she is going to hold Saturday meetings. Children ages eight to 18 may join.
More information is available by calling Heywood at 1-340-277-3537.
She added there isn’t a formal course in the U.S. Virgin Islands that provides training and certification for students interested in becoming pilots.
“We offer all kinds of certifications here,” Heywood says. “But we don’t offer mechanics and pilot certification here in school, and we need to.”
Efforts to establish an Aviation Academy at CTEC are currently being handled by Jo A. Murphy, coordinator for career and technical education at CTEC.
“Willard John, principal at CTEC, has been leading the charge to establish an academy in aviation that can lead to certification as an aviation engineer technician and a pilot,” Murphy said, adding student are interested in this area. However, it is an expensive program to establish, costing approximately $500,000 per year for the first two years.
“We’re looking for individuals and businesses interested in investing in our students’ future and who would like to see this program implemented on St. Croix," she said. "It will be a four-year academy, beginning in 9th grade, and we are planning to include a pathway to postsecondary education.”
Heywood said Bill Bohlke Jr., from Bohlke International Airways, has been very generous in helping to sponsor students and support the club any way he can. The students have to raise funds for their trips with raffles and other events.
