In today’s Aiken STANDARD:
South Carolina 3rd Congressional District candidate Jane Dyer made a campaign stop on the wing Saturday morning at Aiken Municipal Airport.
Dyer arrived at the airport at 9:30 a.m. and addressed a crowd of supporters outside by the flagpole. After her speech, Dyer and her husband John fired up their 1947 Piper Cub and departed on a “Barnstorming For Jobs” tour of South Carolina counties.
“I just wanted to come out this morning to talk about one of the most important things facing all of us, and that’s jobs,” Dyer said. “For those of you who had the opportunity to have a look at our little yellow airplane back there, it’s called a J-3 Cub; those were built back in the late 1930s. Franklin Roosevelt knew we were probably going to come to a situation where we would need a lot of pilots, so these little airplanes were built in the late ’30s to prepare people to become pilots. The great thing about the J-3 Cub is it’s one of the first airplanes built on an assembly line; they built thousands of them. We were able to train thousands of pilots, so when we did get involved in World War II, we already had people with those skills.”
She briefly outlined a three-point plan consisting of making South Carolina a leader in the green energy movement by making homes more energy-efficient, attracting manufacturing industry to the state and supporting the Savannah River Site’s energy production programs.
“You probably know that in South Carolina we are some of the biggest energy consumers in the country,” she said. “We can go from there to being one of the biggest providers of energy in the country. And you know, the energy problem isn’t just in America; it’s worldwide.”
The Dyers planned to visit airports in McCormick, Greenwood, Laurens, Anderson and Pickens, spending approximately an hour in each city before flying the two-seater back to its home berth.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Dyer is employed by FedEx as a commercial pilot. John Dyer is also an Air Force veteran and experienced pilot; Dyer’s stepson is on active duty in the Air Force, flying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We really have it in our blood,” Dyer told the crowd as the couple prepared for takeoff Saturday.
By SUZANNE R. STONE
Staff writer, Aiken STANDARD
http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/0905-Jane-Dyer
