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Meet Author Gene Nora Jessen

Author, Gene Nora Jessen, will talk about her new book, Sky Girls: The True Story of the First Women's Cross-Country Air Race. Book will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation.

From the indomitable Pancho Barnes to the infamous Amelia Earhart, Sky Girls chronicles a defining and previously forgotten moment when some of the first women pilots took their rightful place in the open skies. For a country on the brink of defining change, they would become symbols of hope, daring, and the unstoppable American spirit. And for generations to come, their actions would pave the way for others to step into the brave unknown and learn to fly . . .

Written by female pilot and member of the original Mercury 13 Gene Nora Jessen, Sky Girls celebrates the strength and smarts of these trailblazing women, and sits perfectly on the shelf next to The Radium Girls, Hidden Figures, or Code Girls.

Gene Nora Jessen (pronounced Janora) was most recently featured in the Netflix documentary Mercury 13. She was one of thirteen female pilots who passed the same astronaut physical exam at Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque in the summer of 1961 and came to be known as the Mercury 13. However, further testing was canceled and the program was halted.

In 1962, Jessen flew one of Beech Aircraft’s three Musketeer airplanes in flying formation across forty-eight states in ninety days and went on to become a sales demonstration pilot (always flying in a dress and high heels). 

Jessen is the past president of the Ninety-Nines, the international women pilots organization, and founding member of their 99s Museum of Women Pilots. She has served on the FAA’s Women’s Advisory Committee on Aviation.

She lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband, Bob, who she ran an aviation fixed-base operation business with for many years. Sky Girls is the new edition of her 2002 book, The Powder Puff Derby of 1929.