Cape pilots club plans to celebrate 55 years

On Dec. 17, it will be the 100th year since Wilbur and Orville Wright made their famous first powered flight. For more than half of those years, Cape Girardeau resident and staunch aviation enthusiast J.T. Seesing also took to the skies on a regular basis.

Seesing, one of the founders of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Club, will be the honored guest this afternoon at a meeting of the club that was organized in 1948 to promote aviation and continues today. The group also plans to celebrate its 55th anniversary.

"We wanted to have something where all the people who flew their own airplanes to come together and exchange flying stories," said Seesing, now 83.

Seesing is the sole survivor of a group of charter members that was a who's who of Cape Girardeau in 1948, including John Godwin, D.B. Elron, Ed Landgraf, Elmer Heuer, Alan Bollack and Rush Limbaugh Jr.

Godwin and Seesing, a former Army pilot, were flight instructors at the Consolidated School of Aviation in 1949 at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport, which had just taken over the former Harris Field from the military.

"I first loved flying I guess because I didn't want to go into the infantry," said Seesing, laughing. "No, I was always interested in it."

The group -- initially all men -- took cross-country trips, planned events and held informational programs that often developed into bull sessions, Seesing said.

In 1950, Seesing, a longtime aviation insurance salesman, started Cape Central Airways Co. and eventually became the airport's fixed base operator, which meant managing the airport's daily activities.

"Before, people would just fly into a town and land in a field," said Seesing, who stopped flying solo about five years ago.

Airport manager Bruce Loy said Seesing and the club have meant a lot.

"He has a lot of history here at the airport," Loy said. "He is one of the contributors of the airport auction. They used to have an auction here and from what I understand it was huge. People flew in from all over and had planes for sale. And to this day, a lot of our pilots use J.T. Seesing as their broker for aviation."

Gene Heise also is a longtime member of the club, along with his wife, Dorothea.

"He was just a great leader for us," Dorothea said. "How many people have had uninterrupted membership of anything?"

The group expects about 70 people, and they have invited several older members who haven't attended in awhile.

Seesing said he still misses flying on his own.

"I miss using the airplane," he said. "I enjoyed flying. But being in the pilots club and being around other people who fly is good too."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137