Bedford program rewards good grades with plane rides

By Justin Faulconer
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: April 25, 2008

Sam Rose barely could sleep a wink Wednesday night.

No wonder, when you consider the source of his excitement. By noon Thursday, the 12-year-old had taken off for a half-hour of savory elevation into the blue skies over Bedford.

In the company of Dave Miller, manager of the New London Airport, Sam flew from Forest to the city of Bedford. His flying is part of an incentive program at Bedford Hills Elementary School in Lynchburg that rewards good behavior and scholastic work.

Jane Rose Gordon, Sam’s mother, said the flights have lit a fire in her son’s life. Five years ago, when his father died, he had problems focusing. Now she said he wants to go to an aeronautics school in Florida.

“He thinks and dreams airplanes,” she said. “He’s a new guy. He’s focusing more because he has a motivating factor.”

Janine Madigan, his teacher, found out flying was Sam’s first love two years ago. Now she brings him every six weeks to the airport for flights — if he performs well enough in school.

He has never missed a flight.

“Sam is a star student if there ever was one,” Madigan said.

Planning around Sam, in fact, has led to similar ventures with other students, Madigan said. She has taken some to work with dogs and chefs, others swimming and horseback riding.

Madigan said striking these deals with students makes great differences in class.

Miller and his wife Cheryl are used to helping young people take their first flights. The two pilots participate in a national Young Eagles program designed to introduce children to aviation.

They take Sam flying on their own time and gas money, as part of the school program, along with others who have parental permission. Dave Miller lets him fly in a co-pilot capacity, showing him how to use the controls.

“Just the expression on their face — you know you’ve done something for them that they would probably never get to do,” Cheryl Miller said.

It’s rare to find a boy as knowledgeable about planes as Sam is, she said.

“You watch him and it’s like his little brain is full of questions and they are all airplane related.”

Dave Miller said Sam knows as much about his tandem Citabria plane as he does.

The excitement gives each flight a special purpose.

“We look for an excuse to go flying anyway,” he said. “When you can help a young man out like that, it’s even more fun.”

Sam said he always enjoys the scenery from the air, and it’s not scary anymore. His first time flying, he said, gave him a different point of view.

“I felt like I was a bird,” he said. “I don’t want it to end.”

Sam Rose and pilot Dave Miller fly in a plane to reward Rose’s good scholastic work.
JILL NANCE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE