Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 6

riTTSBlIRGH POST-GAZETTE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11. 2002 NATIONAL Minnesota his team Rendell sets Cohen. RENDELL FROM PAGE A-1 Miller, a Philadelphia lawyer who was the of the Pennsylvania bar Associa counsel for both the transition team aaminisirauon, jvuiuuu scuu. of the transition executive commit Sinsel. who served as the state's lieu under the last Democratic governor, of the transition are John Franklin Marshall College in Lan Makadon, who heads the Philadelphia Spahr, Andrews Ingersoll, where Paul 'Mano, a lawyer irom Mont who served as general counsel to for Ridge; and Sam Staten, a Philadelphia jvri ,1.

Evan VucciAssociated Press said that he would retain Edward fire commissioner. Mann, of Mifflin the position since being appointed by Sen. Dean Barkley gets directions from a skycap at Reagan National Airport Thursday. Chapel who provided more money to Rendell's campaign than any other individual. Frobouck, president of the Anderson Group of Companies confirmed yesterday that he contributed at least $668,000 to the Rendell campaign, with $500,000 of it as a loan.

Frobouck made a fortune last year in the sale of a firm that he formerly co-owned, Corn-Net Ericsson. He said he's been an admirer of Rendell's since they met when supporting Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign. Frobouck backed Rendell's unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in 1986, and was eager to help this year. Frobouck, 60, said he has no interest in any formal position in the Rendell administration, but hopes to provide his business expertise to help the governor behind the scenes. "We really want to change government," Frobouck said "We're tired of moving forward with the status quo, and we want to do things a little differently and leverage the assets we have in Pennsylvania so we can benefit the people of the commonwealth." One of the deputy executive directors for the transition team is Joe Brimmeier of Ross, who was a senior consultant for Western Pennsylvania in the Rendell campaign.

Brimmeier has held numerous government positions, including chief of staff to former U.S. Rep. Rori Hint The transition team will help Rendell select Cabinet secretaries and other key appointees by the time of his Jan. 21 inauguration. The effort will be led by his former mayoral chief of staff, David L.

Cohen, as chairman of the overall transition. The team will focus on setting an agenda and recruiting staff for government departments. "The more inclusive you are, the more different perspectives you get, and I think the higher the quality of senator-J 15 minutes of power By John Tierney The New Yoik Times WASHINGTON With the serenity of a man in the waning days of his career, Dean Barkley fingered a cigar as he leaned back in His leather chair at the Russell Senate Office Building. He was contem- the ritual autumnal question or a senator about to retire: How has Washington changed since you arrived as i freshman? "The weather has improved," Barkley replied on a balmy Friday afternoon. "It was cold and today it's nice." Barkley could remerhber his first cold freshman day as clearly as it were yesterday, which it was.

He arrived Thursday from Minnesota packing new suits and ties from Men's Wearhouse, hurriedly bought after he was unexpectedly appoint ed to serve out the remaining weeks of the term of Sea Paul Wellstone." Gov. Jesse Ventura had talked of sending his trash collector to the session, but he settled on Barkley, an ally in the Minnesota Independence Party who had managed Ventura's victorious 1998 campaign while running a carwash. Barkley ran for the Senate twice in the 1990s, financing himself with loans against his pickup truck and his home in the Minneapolis suburbs. He won less than 10 percent of the vote in each election, but enough support to qualify his party lias 2000. scheduled to leave today for a trip to the where his wife, Marjorie, a federal will hear cases for the 3rd U.S.

Circuit Saturday, he will get to work on priorities, which include addressing malpractice insurance crisis, economic the combined issue of property taxes funding. Development can't wait, in a state that in economic growth," he said. "We the road in the bus shortly after I get Press contributed to this story. can be reached at grotsteinpost- 412-263-1255. "I'm hearing they want to get out of here by Thanksgiving, so that gives me about 10 days ofglory" he said.

"Unless I decide I want to keep them here longer. I mean, I guess a U.S. senator has a lot of power. I could shut down the federal government with a filibuster, right? That's what my people tell me." Although Barkley is in no danger of taking himself too seriously, he is intent on doing his job. He is writing his first speech to deliver on the floor, a eulogy to Wellstone.

How the WASP put a sting in the war effort ELIMINATE CABLE For the BEST or DISH NETWORK Satellite Deal in Pittsburgh Call Locally Owned Operated Since 1958 10491 Frankstown Road, Penn Hills MON-FRI 0-6 TUES THUR 9-7 SAT the work." tenant governor Sob Csscy The other Frv nresident mer Gov. Tom labor leader. Midway through training, Shutsy-Reynolds faced a check ride with a scowling Army captain who announced: "I don't like women and I don't like women pilots." Figuring that he'd flunk her no matter what, she relaxed "and gave him a real good ride." By graduation, three of her roommates had washed out. She was assigned to the engineering department at Merced Army Air Field in California, where she checked out planes before and after they were repaired. Sometimes the WASP flew damaged or war-weary planes that were about to fall apart, but they knew that to refuse would mean dismissal.

"I would have rather died," Shutsy-Reynolds said, even though she knew other WASP who'd been killed or hurt. Two weeks after her graduation, a training classmate, Beverly Moses, was killed in an orientation flight. Later, she witnessed a collision in which two pilots were killed, and she had her own close calls when parts failed or fell off planes she was flying. "They didn't bring in psychiatrists for us," she said. "They cleaned up, you grabbed your chute and you went on with it We had a camaraderie and a purpose.

That kept us going." In 1944, Congress took up legislation to finally bring the WASP into the Army. But despite the WASP's successes, male civilian pilots and flight instructors who didn't want to be drafted mounted an anti-WASP campaign, arguing that the women were taking their jobs. Shutsy-Reynolds was about to begin training B-26 bombers when she abruptly learned that the WASP would be demobilized and sent home at the end of the year. Little was heard from the WASP again until the 1970s, when the Air Force announced that it was about to allow women to fly military aircraft for the first time. That triggered a howl from WASP veterans, who in 1977 persuaded Congress to recognize their war service and grant them military status and benefits.

Like many WASP vets, Shutsy-Reynolds was restless and dissatisfied in civilian life, saying she felt "like an old piece of garbage thrown away." After hitchhiking and riding buses home, she worked for a while in her father's motor repair shop. Then she bounced around the country as a self-described beatnik in California, an Army Air Force chief 1 tjjujjju.j j. ii.MiM.il mm 1 4 Leslie Ann first female president tion, will be general and tor tne new The chairman tee is Mark of caster; Arthur law firm of Ballard, Rendell worked; pnmerv Countv Rendell also Mann as the state County, has held Ridge in June Rendell is U.S. Virgin Islands, appellate judge, Court of Appeals. When he returns some of his top the medical development and and school "Economic is 48th in the nation "will be hitting The Associated Gary Rotstein gazette.com or FOR for public campaign financing.

He campaigned with a makeshift parade float depicting a donkey and an elephantin a cage chewing dollar bills next to a sign reading, "Please Don't Feed These Animals!" Now, because the Senate is evenly divided, Barkley's vote will deter- mine which party Which party controls the chamber during the next two weeks. President Bush has called and sent aides to brief him on the domestic security bill; Sens. Tom Daschle, and Trent Lott, welcomed him for meetings the first day on the job. "I've been battling the system for lOyears, and nowl am the system," Barkley said, grinning and throwing up his hands. "Is this a great country or what?" Barkley said he had not decided which party to empower when Congress reconvenes tomorrow, but in either case he was confident that his five-suit wardrobe would last him through the end of the term.

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and a flight training simulator operator in Anchorage. On her way to Alaska in 1946, she met Lyle Reynolds, a Navy Re servist headed to work in the Panama Canal Zone. They kept in touch for six years until he sent her a ticket to visit. Within two weeks, "the old chemistry" rekindled. They married and remained in Panama for 16 years, where Lyle Reynolds was superin tendent of vehicle maintenance for the Navy and she worked in the Air Force office.

She quit flying, though, because her husband feared that she'd be lost in a crash in the nearly impene trable jungle. Instead, she spent her spare time military shops, learn ing to weld and work with metals and other cratts. In 1968, Lyle Reynolds was about to retire when her father had a fatal heart attack, so the couple returned to Connellsville to care for her mother. Using skills she'd honed in Panama, Shutsy-Reynolds opened a custom-jewelry business in her dad's backyard shop. Shutsy-Reynolds' mother died in 1986 and her husband died two years later.

To stay productive, she took over the WASP organization's "Stores" job, making and selling intricate silver and bronze jewelry, banners, scarves and other WASP- themed items. Her pieces feature their wings, the planes they flew, their gremlin mascot "Fifinella," designed by Walt uisney, or tneir motto: "We live in the wind and sand and our eyes are on the stars." She also travels to air shows, sells books written by or about WASP and works with museums and the Kids of the WASP an off spring organization, to educate post war generations about the WASP history and accomplishments. She briefly took up flying again in 1991, just to see if she could, but stopped because it became too expensive a hobby. But she is often awakened by dreams in which she is back in the sky, at the controls of a mmiary piane. "We have kept together and there a bonding there.

But our ranks are getting thin," she said, noung mat only about 540 of the original WASP are still alive. "We did a good job, and we'd like people to catch us now while they can still hear about what we did." Cindi Lash can be reached at or Force Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold, Cochran formed the WFTD, a military-style training program for women pilots. Her first class graduated in 1943 at the Houston Municipal Airport Later that year, the two units merged into the WASP with Cochran as its director. Training moved to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, the only all-female base in the country.

Military leaders didn't talk much about the WASP, fearing that Americans would not accept women pilots in traditionally male roles. Still, more than 25,000 women applied to join; fewer than 2,000 were accepted. Shutsy-Reynolds, who by then was working for American Locomotive Co. in Latrobe, heard "scuttlebutt" about the WASP while she flew at airports in Connellsville and Latrobe. Months shy of the minimum required age of 21, she started writing to Cochran every week, pestering her for a chance to join the WASP until the age was lowered to 18.

After a six-day bus trip to Sweetwater, Shutsy-Reynolds joined five other women in a barracks room. They began a rigorous six-month program that equaled training required of male cadets. The WASP, was organized with the expectation that it would eventually be fully militarized, so the women wore dark-blue uniforms or military-issue coveralls in three sizes: "Big, bigger and way too big." They did calisthenics and hewed to Army rules. But because they were still civilians, they paid their way to Texas and their room and board came out of their monthly salary of $150 during training and $250 after graduation. They had no benefits, and families of those who were killed received no Gold Star or burial expenses.

During training, they couldn't fraternize with anyone but themselves, so they read, sang and forged friendships that lasted for decades. They also shared lore learned the hard way like avoiding liquids before flights because they couldn't use the relief tube built in for men. "I loved it, but you worried. You got demerits for everything but breathing and you could wash out for any reason," said Shutsy-Reynolds, whose photographs from those days show a slim blonde with wind-tousled curls and an exuberant smile. "The men resented us and didn't know what to do with us.

You had to prove yourself on every flight." WASP FROM PAGE A-1 believed it was unsafe, Col. Paul Tibbetts who later dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima trained three WASP to fly it and sent them to air bases to demonstrate it. Although the WASP were not permitted in combat, their work was dangerous. In two years, 38 pilots were killed and others were injured. "Glamour? Hell, it was hard work," said Shutsy-Reynolds, who in October was elected vice president of WASP veterans at their 60th anniversary reunion in Ticson.

"We were very serious about our work. We knew the opportunity it was, to help the war effort and to get to fly these wonderful planes." Snutsy-Reynolds came to the WASP after a childhood spent reading everything she could find about aviation. Despite her family's initial reaction to her goal, her parents, John and Anna, assured her that she could accomplish anything if she worked for it. "My dad lost a leg in a mining accident and he never let anything get in his way," she said. "My dad felt that if you want it, you go for it." After graduating at 17 from Dunbar Township High School in 1940, Shutsy-Reynolds read about a government-sponsored Civilian Pilot Training Program at the Con-nellsville Airport.

She enrolled and did so well in the initial ground school portion that she won a scholarship for the flight portion. Shutsy-Reynolds earned her pilot's license in 1941, just before the government barred women from the program because it expected to soon need more male combat pilots. Year's end brought the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the war. By then, two pioneering women aviators commercial pilot Nancy Harkness Love and cosmetics mogul and flight record-setter Jacqueline Cochran had approached U.S.

military leaders with plans to use women pilots in military jobs. Both were rebuffed. But after a few months, military officials reconsidered in the face of a critical shortage of combat pilots. Love set up the WAFS in 1942, recruiting women with extensive training and experience to ferry or tow planes from factories to Air Force facilities. Cochran's proposal was more ambitious, calling for women pilots to be trained for other noncombat flying missions.

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