The purpose of Aviation
Trail, Inc. is:
1) to identify and preserve the Dayton/Miami Valley
aviation heritage, 2) to engage in promotional and educational activities
to create an awareness of the area's identification with aviation
and of its place in aviation history, and 3) to stimulate the area's
economic development through aviation-related capital projects.
Aviation
Trail, Inc. is governed by a Board of Trustees of no less than 15
members and no more than 20. A Board of Advisors with no membership
limitation was established in 1982. The incorporating trustees
were:
Jim Alexander Jim
Jacobs
Gerald Sharkey
Paul Brown Harold
Johnson
Marian S. Simmons
Dick Baughman
Mary Ann Johnson
Colonel Richard Uppstrom
John Dussault
J. H. Meyer, M. D.
Read Viemeister
E. George Ferguson
Amy Salaverria
George J. Wedekind, Jr.
Ed Hamlyn
Doris Scott
Mel Weinberg
THE TOURIST AVIATION TRAIL
The committee that
preceded the formal incorporation of ATI decided that its first project
would be to develop a tourist Aviation Trail to attract visitors to
the Dayton/Miami Valley area, then to publish a brochure promoting
the new trail. The initial research uncovered a wide range of
aviation-related attractions and historically-significant sites --
many more than could be included in a simple handout. Therefore,
the brochure was limited to the ten sites considered to be of most
interest to the general public.
An Aviation Trail Inaugural Tour
on July 13, 1981, introduced community leaders to the trail laid out
in the new brochure. The 175 guests toured the sites in five
special RTA buses. Sally Graubarth trained the tour guides accompanying
each bus and arranged the details, including a costumed "Katharine
Wright" waiving to the visitors from the law of Hawthorn Hill, the
Wright mansion in Oakwood, and airplane-shaped cookies served as refreshments
on the buses. The Inaugural Tour and brochure were underwritten
by the Dayton-Montgomery County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
