Southeast Section of the 99s

| Organization of Women Pilots

Ninety-Nines History

The Ninety-Nines®
International Organization of Women Pilots®

Ninety-Nines LogoThe Ninety-Nines, Inc.® is the first and only international organization of licensed women pilots. From 35 countries, we currently have over 5,500 members throughout the world. We are a non-profit, charitable membership corporation holding 501(c)(3) U.S. tax status. Our International Headquarters is located inMissionCopy.jpg Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Although there are other female pilot organizations in various states and nations, virtually all women of achievement in aviation have been or are members of The Ninety-Nines.

The organization came into being on November 2, 1929, at Curtiss Field, Valley Stream, Long Island, New York. All 117 American female pilots had been invited to assemble for mutual support and the advancement of aviation. Louise Thaden was elected secretary and worked tirelessly to keep the group together as we struggled to organize and grow until 1931 when Amelia Earhart was elected as the first president, and the group was named for the 99 charter members.

Today The Ninety-Nines® are comprised of women who fly purely for fun, fly professionally for airlines, corporations, flight schools, and government agencies, or fly their own airplanes for their own businesses. First and foremost, we are all women pilots who love to fly!

The Ninety-Nines® Headquarters is located on six acres at the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This is also the site of the 99s Museum of Women Pilots, the world’s largest collection of records, memorabilia, books, photographs, and audio and video tapes on women pilots from history and today. The Ninety-Nines® also have a museum in Atchison, Kansas, in Amelia Earhart’s birthplace home.

Learn more about the 99s on The Ninety-Nines® International website.

History of the Southeast Section

The Southeast Section came into being at one of the ‘forming’ meetings of the 97 CLUB. Units, called sections, were patterned after the geographical division of states used by the United States Army. The Southeastern section included Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

A report titled “Sections of 99”, minutes of the First Annual Meeting, 1930, listed the eight sections but did not list the names of the governors. The report implied a meeting of governors, conducted by Louse Thaden. Louise wrote,

I believe this covers the meeting and all matters of importance. I am sure the Governors and Officers will be more than glad to have suggestions from you. We will never grow or become the strong organization we should be unless each of us is interested in and willing to put our shoulder to the wheel for the “99s”…… So let’s all start out the new year – our third – with a firm resolve to aid in every way our new Governors and new Officers and to make the “99s” what it deserves and should be.

Mary Nicholson, Greensboro, North Carolina, is listed as governor of the Southeastern Section in the minutes of the 1931 Annual Meeting.

From our humble beginning, we have grown into what we are today with over 1000 members in the Southeast Section. You can read our complete history, compiled by one of our members, in the SE Section History.