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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 9:06 pm 
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WASP veteran pilot, 90, dies in Denver

By Claire Martin
The Denver Post
Betty Jo Streff Reed joined the Women's Airforce Service Pilot program in 1943. She became a corporate pilot in the 1960s, left. (Photos courtesy of the Reed family)

Betty Jo Streff Reed, who died June 22 in Denver, two days after her 90th birthday, was 6 years old when she first rode in an airplane, igniting a passion that made her a Women's Airforce Service Pilot during World War II, and later a test pilot and corporate pilot.

Airplanes were still a novelty then. When Charles Lindbergh attempted his first transatlantic flight, Reed was such a little girl that she thought every plane flying overhead might be holding Lindbergh, so she would wave her arms and yell, "Hi, Lindbergh!"

By the time she graduated from high school, she
Betty Jo Streff Reed was a corporate pilot in the 1960s and '70s. She died June 22, 2013 at the age of 90. (The Denver Post | Courtesy of the Reed family)
had her pilot's license. In 1943, she made the cut for the selective Women's Airforce Service Pilot program. She was among 1,102 Army-trained female pilots who ferried damaged aircraft for repair, flew repaired aircraft to military bases, or towed targets for nascent gunners.

She was assigned to a unit in Mississippi, where the male airmen "made it pretty clear we weren't wanted," she would tell audiences when she recounted her WASP days. Reed ignored the detractors and concentrated on her assignment as a test pilot, performing maintenance flights with repaired airplanes to make sure they were working.

Sometimes, the planes didn't work. During one test flight, one of the plane's engines failed. She navigated an emergency landing in a cornfield, where the plane went through a fence separating cattle from the corn.

Fearful that the plane would burst into flames , Reed leaped out and began running. When she saw the cattle coming toward her, she turned around and sped back toward the plane.

"She was scared of cows," daughter Melissa Reed explained.

Though the WASP program ended in December 1944, Reed found ways to stay airborne. McDonnell Douglas hired her as a test pilot. An automobile accident grounded her for about 10 years, during which she became a wife and mother.

She focused her efforts on her family and, in 1957, she and her husband, Carl W. Reed, founded the first McDonald's franchise in Colorado. It was the third McDonald's restaurant in the U.S.

When her youngest child, Melissa, was born in 1958, she began flying again. She was trained and type-rated to fly Lear jets and King Air and became a corporate pilot.

Apart from in-town chores and commutes, the Reeds used planes the way other families used station wagons. Only once did the Reeds drive the family to Colorado Springs.

"Never again," Melissa Reed said. "In a plane, you don't have to listen to your kids whine."

The Reeds kept a series of small planes, including one with a single bench seat behind the pilot and co-pilot chairs. The children hated that plane but liked its replacement because the newer plane had individual seats.

When she wasn't flying, Betty Jo Reed helped her husband build their McDonald's empire into 10 stores. In her later years, she liked to socialize with Vietnam veteran pilots at the Veterans Administration hospital, talking about planes.

Survivors include daughters Melissa Reed of Aurora and Sally Reed of Dallas; son John Reed of Deer Lodge, Mont.; three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Her husband, two sisters and her son, Guy Reed, preceded her in death.

Claire Martin: 303-954-1477, cmartin@denverpost.com or twitter.com/byclairemartin

Read more: WASP veteran pilot, 90, dies in Denver - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/obituaries/ci ... z2a75N7fLb
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http://www.denverpost.com/obituaries/ci ... ies-denver


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