Aviation enthusiasts enjoy back-to-back programs on the military aviation career of Ernest A. Love and the City Airport named for the Prescott WWI hero, at the January and February American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) Prescott-ERAU meetings respectively.

Alan Roesler, aviation historian, publisher, and author of An Arizona Aviator in France, leads off on January 16 with “The Military Career of Ernest A. Love.”  Content of his presentation includes details from letters Love wrote home to family during his military life.  In 1918 during the St. Mihiel Offensive Love was shot down and subsequently died in a German field hospital. 

In Roesler’s extensive, four year research for this book he drew on documents available through Prescott’s Sharlott Hall Museum and the Ernest A. Love American Legion Post # 6.  “I was very pleased to be able to assist with the transfer of the ‘Love’ letters from the American Legion Post #6 archives to the Sharlott Hall Museum,” Roesler reported as he further commented on the invaluable research he was able to do through each of these organizations.  Personal interviews with family members and the Gorrell’s History of the 147^th Aero Squadron, which included the reports of every flight made during the war by Love and his colleagues, added depth and breadth to this intriguing story of the young aviator to whom Prescott’s airport was dedicated in 1928.

For the American Aviation Historical Society’s February 13 meeting, Nancy Burgess, City of Prescott Preservation Specialist and published author, picks up the story at the dedication of Prescott’s airport in 1928.  Burgess’ presentation, "A History Of Prescott's Ernest A. Love Field,” showcases the land use and development of Love Field from a simple airstrip to the bustling industrial/commercial aviation center of today. 

Ernest A. Love in the cockpit of a Curtiss JN-4
“Jenny” primary trainer.

Nancy Burgess, a native of Phoenix, relocated to Prescott in the spring of 1984.  The City of Prescott’s Preservation Specialist since 1990, Burgess is pleased with the opportunity to delve into the history of Love Field for presentation to the public.  She too is using resources available through the Sharlott Hall Museum for her multi-media program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  Her extensive and varied background in art, design, photography, law, and historic preservation consultation serve Prescott well in her job as Preservation Specialist.

For information about the AAHS free, public programs at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at 7 p.m. on January 16 and February 13, call professor Nick Manderfield at 777-6985. 

Adults and children alike benefit from the programming available from the Highlands Center for Natural History here in Prescott, and offerings for both are immediately available in the coming new year. 

Among other events in the packed agenda the Center has between January and May, children can enroll in their nature club for 6 to 12 year olds, the Nature Nuts.  Every other Saturday from January 19th through April 12th the Center’s Education Director, Fiona Reid, leads the Nature Nuts members off into the 80-acres of forest adjacent to the James Learning Center and together they spend 4 hours exploring, playing, investigating, discovering, creating artworks, and spending time journaling down by Lynx Creek.  This kind of natural study of nature trains the eye and mind of these youngsters to see and understand the wonders of the native flora and fauna of this area and in that way, Reid says, “. . . they establish a kind of living sympathy with everything around them.  It’s wonderful for them and bodes well for the future of our environment.  ”  For younger children aged 3 to 5, known as Knee-High Naturalists, another staff member, Lisa Packard, conducts less strenuous but just as wonder-full explorations into the natural world.