Mary Oswald

Mary Oswald was born and educated in Alberta, and received her Master of Education degree from the University of Alberta. Most of her working career as teacher, principal and consultant was spent in Edmonton, and she also taught at the U of A. For four years she was co-editor of a teachers’ journal published by the ATA, and following retirement, spent seven years as supervisor for many student teachers during their practicums.

She received her Private Pilot’s Licence in 1979, and shortly afterwards joined the “99’s”, an International Organization of Women Pilots. She became deeply committed to them, and served in all of the elected offices of the West Canada Section, including Governor.

She was elected to the Board of Directors of the Alberta Aviation Council in 1986, and served as President in 1992-93. She was a long-time member of COPA (Canadian Owners and Pilots Association), and in 1998 was the co-coordinator of its very successful convention held in Edmonton. She also served for several years on the executive of the Edmonton Chapter of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society.

Since 1996, Mary has been a member of the Alberta Operations Committee for Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame. In the fall of 1998, she undertook the task of producing a new book about the Members of The Hall of Fame to commemorate its 25th anniversary. They Led the Way was the result of many hours of research and rewriting in an effort to bring the stories of the Members up-to-date with additional information and photographs.

Thereafter, she produced the annual Updates to the book. These stories about newly inducted Members are now collected in binders as part of the set of They Led the Way. In 2005 she chaired the Induction Dinner Gala which was held in Edmonton. At this time she produced a detailed dinner program book which was given to each dinner guest, and began the tradition of producing a short biographical video on each new Member to be shown during the dinner. Both of these endeavours have proven to be very successful and are continued today.

For the 2010 induction, Mary passed on these three major tasks to John Chalmers, who became The Hall’s new historian.