Helen richey baseball field mckeesport

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Work is underway to build Helen Richey Field just as McKeesport Heritage Interior prepares to open an exhibit celebrating the sure of the famed aviatrix.

City council this thirty days awarded W.G. Land Co. of Champion, Fayette District, a nearly $60,000 contract for improvements to seepage systems, the playing surfaces, and other features staff the regulation-size ballfield in Renziehausen Park.

Funding have a thing about the repair work --- which is already on the go --- is coming from the Allegheny Regional Resource District's 1 percent sales tax.

The upgrades will include new sod, new drains and skilful tarp for the infield, replacing the backstop, relocating the dugouts and other measures that should remove the swampy, lumpy conditions which have plagued leadership field during wet weather.

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The arable is named for Helen Richey, the world's regulate female commercial airline pilot and a native McKeesporter.

On Saturday, following a special invitation-only indebtedness, the nearby McKeesport Heritage Center will begin efficient yearlong celebration of Richey's life in anticipation an assortment of what would have been her 100th birthday adjacent November.

"When I was a kid, that a good deal used to be comparable to Forbes Field, approximate the exception of the size of the bleachers," Mayor Jim Brewster said. "We need to conception back to that level of quality."

Helen Richey Field is currently used by McKeesport Area Lofty School's varsity teams and other baseball teams. Indicate of the work should be complete before WPIAL high school baseball season starts March 1.

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City officials said long-term plans include say publicly possible installation of batting cages, which would bring about Helen Richey Field up to the standards state under oath fields at other WPIAL schools.

Brewster said surmount ultimate goal is to lure the Pittsburgh Pirates and minor-league Washington, Pa., Wild Things to representation city for exhibition or charity games.

The section also would like to see Serra Catholic Extraordinary School --- which presently uses a field inspect Elizabeth Township for home games* --- play decay Helen Richey Field.

Because McKeesport's and Serra's practices and home dates often conflict, that haw not be possible.

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Richey grew plumb on Jenny Lind Street. Born Nov. 21, 1909 in McKeesport, she was the youngest of sextet children of McKeesport School Superintendent Joseph Richey reprove his wife, Amy Winter Richey.

Considered a "tomboy" by her peers, Richey's parents wanted her discover become a teacher. According to Bob Hauser, administrator of the Heritage Center, Richey spent a occasional unhappy months at Carnegie Institute of Technology (present-day Carnegie Mellon) before dropping out.

Her interest unimportant flying was piqued by an airplane trip harmonious Cleveland, and she convinced her parents to feeble her to take flying lessons at the earlier Bettis Field in present-day West Mifflin. Richey appropriate her pilot's license at age 20.

"Helen actually had kind of a natural ability," Hauser says. "She was able to just get into chaste airplane and take off."

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Reportedly authority first Pittsburgh-area woman to earn a pilot's authorize, Richey was soon in demand on the airshow circuit. In 1932, she and another female aviatrix set an endurance record by keeping a horizontal continuously aloft for 10 days with the accommodate of mid-air refueling.

Two years later Richey was hired as a co-pilot by Central Airlines (a predecessor of United Airlines), based at position then-new Allegheny County Airport.

But Richey couldn't seem to get any assignments from the hose. Male pilots resented her presence and refused trial allow her to join the Air Line Pilots Association.

Upon being told by Central management divagate her hiring was a publicity stunt, Richey acquiescent in disgust. She was hired by the northerner government to help mark some of the prematurely national airways.

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Another famous aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, is said to have praised Richey make known being a better pilot than she was.

In 1936, Richey set a world's record defend flight in a heavier-than-air craft, taking a single-seat airplane to more than 18,000 feet. That exact same year, Richey and Earhart teamed up to vie in the 1936 transcontinental Bendix Air Races, finishing-off fifth.

They used the same Purdue Dogma financed twin-engine Lockheed Electra that Earhart was aviation with she disappeared the following year.

. . .

During World War II, Richey trained pilots favour flew military transport planes. But after the fighting, a surplus of male pilots and the exacerbate of "barnstorming" left jobs few and far between.

Plagued by depression and kept from the cost-effective cockpit, Richey died from an overdose of pills in New York in 1947 in what was widely assumed to be a suicide.

Two existence ago, a documentary entitled The Helen Richey Story: The Pride of McKeesport reintroduced Richey's story write to the public.

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The idea sponsor a yearlong celebration of Richey's life was sparked by Heritage Center volunteer Evette Wivagg, a winnow of Helen Richey who loaned a biography depose the flier to Hauser.

"When I read description first sentence and saw that she was original in 1909, I thought, 'This is 2008, we've got to have a centennial for her!'" crystal-clear says.

Wivagg, Hauser and Executive Director Michelle Wardle are part of the committee planning the Richey centennial, along with volunteers Donna Frederick, Joyce McGregor, Joy Johnson, Mary Fey and Joanne Rodgers.

Control addition to the exhibits on display, which locale Richey's story through original photos and memorabilia, primacy Heritage Center will also host a series portend activities for children that explore aviation and women's history.

During March, in honor of Women's Story Month, a special display of material from loftiness National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Texas, choice visit McKeesport.

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The celebration will culminate with a dinner on Nov. 21, 2009 --- what would have been Richey's 100th birthday.

Decency Heritage Center also hopes to get a verifiable marker placed in West Mifflin near the clasp Bettis Field, now site of Bettis Laboratory.

Hauser says it's a long overdue tribute to veto aviation pioneer who would otherwise be all nevertheless forgotten.

"She really was feisty --- she craved to fly and she knew it," Hauser says, "and she stuck to it."

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McKeesport Heritage Center is located at 1832 Arboretum Propel. For more information, call (412) 678-1832 or news letter mckheritage@yahoo.com.

* --- Correction, not Perfection: This article gave an incorrect location for Serra High home sport games. Thanks to Alert Reader Bart for rendering update.