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Where dreams take flight: a pilot discovers Nebraska
by Betty Sayers

“When I’m flying nothing else is on my mind,” says pilot Elisa Tyson. “I focus on the task at hand. When the plane lifts up, my troubles fall below me.”

Tyson’s home airport is now Brewster Field in Holdrege, but it wasn’t that long ago that she packed up and moved – lock, stock and Cessna 172 – from California to the wide open prairies of Nebraska.

Tyson’s transformation from a Californian to a Nebraskan began mid-summer in 2005, but her story begins with a tour of duty as a medic in the army. For six years while stationed in Hawaii, she worked near the helicopter pad, fascinated by the helicopters and the technicalities of flying. With her return to civilian life and a career in corrections, she never lost her desire. She started flying lessons in 2003, acquired a pilot’s license and bought her first airplane, a 1965 Cessna 172, in 2004.

“Flying is the most mentally challenging experience I have ever known,” Tyson says. “Pilots calculate fuel, wind, navigation routes, and so much else. After my first flight, I was mentally exhausted.”

Tyson learned to fly in the northern California region that borders an ocean on the west and mountains to the east with giant redwood trees below.

“Nebraska is ideal for flying since pilots constantly search for open land in case of an emergency landing. Below me in Nebraska, I see open fields, wheat fields, rural roads – I’m thinking the whole country is a runway!”

A search for a new adventure.

The summer of 2005, Tyson’s daughter moved to Ohio, and it stirred in Tyson a desire to do something different. She asked her daughter which states had caught her attention on her move to Ohio, and her daughter replied, “I think the Nebraska countryside is beautiful.”

When she began her search for a new adventure, most important to Elisa Tyson was an accessible and full service airport. She researched Nebraska airports online and pulled up Brewster Field in Holdrege. She telephoned the field and spoke to the airport manager who took time to talk with her and answer her questions about flying in Nebraska.

She learned that Nebraska’s 90 licensed airports attract airplane enthusiasts from around the world, and that many Nebraska airports were built during World War II, but are maintained and improved by the communities they serve.

Tyson learned the Holdrege primary runway is 4,700 feet long and has recently been resurfaced to provide an excellent operational surface. It has a full length, lighted taxiway, an Automated Weather Observation Station and three distinct Instrument Approach Procedures that permit pilots to land at Holdrege in inclement weather.

“They nearly hired me on the phone”

With the airport part worked out, Tyson concentrated on the next aspect of her adventure: available career opportunities. After the Army, Tyson was employed as a correctional officer for 16 years in California, so she talked to Lt. Penny Gregg at the Sheriff’s office to explore the potential of working in the Phelps County corrections system.

She said, “Lieutenant Gregg invited me for an interview and nearly hired me on the phone.”

Next she pulled up houses for sale in Phelps County on a Web site. She said, “One small house jumped out for me, and things started coming together.”

On Sept. 12, 2005, Tyson took a commercial flight into Kearney, arriving on a pitch black night. “I drove to Holdrege and found a motel, but I was awake and up before sunrise,” she said. “I got in my car and was driving toward the airport when the sun came up. I had never seen a sunrise as magnificent.  I started to cry it was so beautiful.”

Tyson interviewed with the supervisors at the jail and took a battery of tests, then met with a realtor who showed her many houses.

Tyson said, “I asked her about the little house I had seen, and she told me that I could find a better house and continued to drive me to other, bigger houses.  Finally, we drove down Hancock and I saw the little house I’d seen originally, and I knew it was for me.”

Even before Tyson knew she had the job and finalized the house purchase, she decided on blind faith that the move to Nebraska was working out and the right thing to do. She flew her airplane from California to Nebraska in October, 2005, and moved herself, her dog and her household goods two months later.

Neighbors that are easy to love.

Tyson’s voice glows with real warmth when she speaks about her transition to rural Nebraska and small town living.

“The first day I went to Sonic to buy lunch, a teenage girl at the drive thru looked me square in the face and said, ‘How are you doing today?’ I was so impressed that she spoke courteously and looked her in the eye when she spoke.”

The following evening she ate dinner at the Chinese restaurant. She said, “In most California restaurants people isolate themselves at their table, but here I had a really nice conversation with a complete stranger who was eating at a table nearby. I felt comfortable and welcome. Rural Nebraska people are as friendly and open as any I’ve ever seen.”

In rural Nebraska Tyson knows her neighbors.

“I lived in some places in California for 12 years and seldom saw and didn’t know my neighbors. I have lived in rural Nebraska for a year and a half, and I know my neighbors better than all the years I lived in California. My neighbors watch out for me.  During the ice storm that knocked out the electricity, my neighbors who had a generator invited me in to share the warmth and lights of their home.”

Tyson hasn’t found her rural Nebraska lifestyle boring. In fact, she’s entered the 2007 Air Race Classic, a 2,500 mile all woman airplane race. The race starts in Oklahoma City and on June 19, fifty female pilots will land in McCook. After McCook, the aviators race on to the east coast, and then on to Canada. Tyson’s flying partner is Diane Bartels of Lincoln, who has written and published a book about Nebraska women aviators.  (To learn more about the Air Race Classic, visit www.airraceclassic.org/history).

Tyson hasn’t regretted leaving California in the slightest. She enjoys walking to work, the Farmers’ Market and community groups as well as reduced costs for housing and insurance and a less stressful work environment. 

“As a corrections officer, I’ve seen a lot of drunks,” she says. “But as a general rule, even the drunks in Nebraska are friendly.”

Betty Sayers is a Nebraska Rural Living founder and a frequent contributor to Nebraska Life among other publications. She makes her home in Holdrege, NE.

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