We have chills right now.
Last week we hosted a group of Seneca Valley High School students from Mr. Christopher Brown’s aviation class. The field trip was covered by a local newspaper. A few days later, Mr. Brown got an email from the daughter of the teacher who started the Seneca Valley aviation program in the 1960s!
High Flight is so honored to be part of this long-standing tradition of aviation education at Seneca Valley. Read on to see what Kae Kirkwood had to say about the program her father started:
“Dear Mr. Brown:
My mother and I read with interest the article, “Flying High,” in the Butler Eagle yesterday about the Aviation class you teach at Seneca. “The program was established initially by a physics teacher….” That physics teacher was my dad, Philip W. Hirschy. He was always very proud of having been able to start the aviation program there and would have been so pleased to know that aviation is again being taught.
Dad had loved airplanes from the time he was a boy. He had hoped to be a pilot in the Army (WW II), but a minor health issue kept him from serving in that way. He was able to obtain his private pilot’s license after the war, and his love of flying was fueled by airplane books and subscriptions to various aviation magazines, along with trips to airports and airplane shows. He taught in our school district for over 30 years, first at Evans City High School and then at Seneca Valley High School. When still at Evans City High, he brought a decommissioned military airplane to sit at the edge of the football field, I believe for the purpose of teaching students about airplanes. We are not sure exactly when he actually started teaching the aviation classes, but it was at least by the mid-1960s. My sister was in his aviation class in 1968 or 1969, and it had been taught for some time previous to that. My brother also took Aviation in 1972 or 1973. Unfortunately, my dad passed away in January of 2016, so we don’t have him to verify the details about some of this information. If Seneca has any kind of archives, there is probably some record of when aviation was first taught. After Dad retired in 1983, Mr. Hal Repasky took his place teaching physics and, since he was also a pilot, he assumed the teaching of aviation, as well. The article mentioned “a private pilot who has since retired” as taking over the program. I don’t know if that referred to Mr. Repasky or someone else. The article was kind of confusing in that aspect: since both my dad–the teacher who started the program–and Mr. Repasky (who took it over from him) were physics teachers and private pilots, it is unclear whether there have been three or only two aviation teachers prior to you….)
I have attached some photos of Dad’s aviation classes for your interest. He would take them on field trips to the Pittsburgh airport each year, and these are mostly shots from those trips. The quality of some is not great, as they were scanned from newspaper photos, but they will give you a look into the history of the course at Seneca. As you can see, the classes were quite popular.
Keep up the good work as you promote and expand the program. My dad would definitely give you a “thumbs up” for your efforts.
Sincerely,
Kae (Hirschy) Kirkwood, Evans City
SVHS Class of 1977″
This is just another amazing example of how much smaller the world gets when you learn to fly. Connections are made and bridges are built that just don’t happen in any other industry.
Thank you to Mr. Brown and Ms. Kirkwood for including High Flight in this fascinating piece of history!
