Lucky Lady Jane: It’s All in the Blessings

“I used to think I was lucky, but later in life I realized I’ve truly been blessed.”

~ Jane Morris

When I went to Jane Morris’ house for our interview it was another rainy day at the end of a gloomy week. However, all that changed as soon as Jane opened the door to her home. I was greeted by her pooch Libby and an adorable and entertaining little girl named Eloise. The gloom was gone, and we immediately fell into a wonderful afternoon of discussion, stories and laughter — not necessarily in that order.

When I had asked about an interview, Jane first adamantly declined. She feels the story about her flying and awards has been told and there simply would not be readers for it. She’s far too humble. Besides, we have a wide readership, and not everyone knows Jane, and they certainly don’t know the depths of her life story. Also, I’m a firm believer that people never realize the most interesting parts of themselves, the things others would latch onto if they only knew, the inspiration and uniqueness that they themselves never see.

So much bravery seems to be in this story, and when I mentioned a little bit about who I was going to interview to a colleague of mine, Amy McWhirt, Humanities faculty at Cowley College, she said, “I know sometimes people, especially people who have accomplished exceptional things, get to a point in their lives when they feel like they have told their story so many times that there is nothing new to say. It is important to tell the story again, though. Young people desperately need models of bravery. They need to be inspired by people who accomplished things they can’t even imagine from the confines of a modern childhood.”

Jane and I talked a bit about bravery and youth today, about how hard it is for parents and mentors to encourage it due to the world in which we live, but how much it’s needed in the challenges they will meet. That led us to her story.

Flying seemed a normal pathway for Jane because her dad was in the agribusiness and flying was a fast way to travel places, but get home quickly. They and the Johnson family in Newkirk purchased a small Cessna airplane together and took advantage of doing just that. When Jane later went to the

University of Oklahoma, she took Aviation as part of her education. Once you do that, she mentioned, you continue it, or the time and money you’ve put in just isn’t worth what you’ve already done.

So, Jane ended up continuing to the point she was a flight instructor at OU and on staff in the Transportation Department. It was in 1974 while on staff that she ended up lucky to fly a crew for Conoco with all their heavy camera equipment to Ponca City. The weight could have been a huge issue on the plane they were in, but with Jane’s management of its weight, the weight of the fuel and her knowledge of the flight path (she’s a Ponca City gal, and that’s where they were headed), she impressed this group. In the end, one of them wrote a story for the Norman Transcript about this female pilot that put her in the eyes of people who needed to see her since it was not the norm for a woman to pilot large aircraft at this time.

As it turned out, there was only one way to truly continue training in 1977, and that was in the military, so it was off to U.S. Naval Aviation Flight Training as one of the few women in aviation officer candidate school. In September 1978 there were three women and 300 men in the pool waiting for training. This is when luck hit again and Jane heard that United Airlines was now required to hire women. Rather than send her application in, she flew to their Denver office dressed in her military uniform, handed her resume to the receptionist for a process that normally takes months, and said she had brought reading material and would just … wait. It worked. They interviewed her that day, she was hired and the rest really is history.

In listening to Jane’s story, I cannot help but think of the numerous times I tell my college students they must be prepared and watch for the doors that will open for them. They cannot stand by and wait. Doors open to possibilities we cannot imagine if we will only keep our eyes open to the world. Jane is an example of someone watching, listening, waiting for the wonderful openings that will come.

Due to her taking that monumental step with all the confidence she could muster in the moment the universe presented to her, Jane is the first female to fly the 747-400, a huge aircraft (seriously, look it up — its maximum take-off weight is 875,000 pounds). It flew longrange flights of 15 hours when manufactured. Jane’s petite frame captained this massive aircraft for many years.

Another of Jane’s missions that has helped many others besides herself is on the family front. When she became pregnant, United (and other airlines) didn’t allow pilots to fly. She went to court taking this maternity issue to be able to fly while pregnant. She lost. However, the judge in the case called her over and told her she needed to file it as a civil case under the handicapped issue instead. As much as she didn’t want it considered a disability, since that went completely opposite to her point, she refiled and won.

The funniest (at least it certainly seems so to me) part of this is, Jane really felt this would