Pilots deliver to Native Americans

Dennis Truax volunteered to help collect items for a coat drive, then decided to ask his wife, Jeanie, whom he said "loves a challenge" to see what she could do. She told him she’d start small and see how it works out. She reached out to fellow yoga class participants at Trinity Presbyterian in Starkville. They all reached out to their churches for donations, she told the Columbus Dispatch. They collected hundreds of coats, scarves, gloves and other winter clothing in under a month, contributing to a haul of more than 1,000 items that Dennis and five other pilots Mississippi flew to Moundridge, Kan., on Nov. 2. Another group of pilots later flew supplies Nov. 8 to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Manderson, S.D., for children from the Wounded Knee District School. Pine Ridge is the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the country and home to the Oglala Lakota Nation of the Lakota Sioux. The average temperatures in South Dakota fall below freezing five months a year, and the need for winter clothing is critical. Lynn Havens came up with a solution to shipping costs. A member of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 1189, he recruited fellow members to help him fly the cargo. Pilots Dennis Truax, Charlie Miller of Tupelo, Alan Warfield of Booneville, Dave Leonard of Water Valley and Thomas Sippel of Starkville flew the first leg of the trip. Born and raised in Germany, Sippel came to Mississippi in 2009 to work for Airbus Helicopters (AHI) near the Golden Triangle Regional Airport at Columbus. The coat drive collected 1,000 coats, Anita Havens said. "The (Pine Ridge) reservation is so big that we're only able to help a fraction of the people," she said. But, next year's drive will start in September. (Source: Columbus Dispatch 12/14/19) AHI builds the UH-72A “Lakota” helicopter for the U.S. Army. https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=77973