Author, historian Katherine Sharp Landdeck to present Helen Foster Lecture next week

BLAKE ALSUP, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo
·3 min read

TUPELO — Dr. Katherine Sharp Landdeck, author of "The Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II," will present the 2024 Helen Foster Lecture at the Lee County Library in Tupelo next week.

Landdeck is a professor of history at Texas Woman's University, a Normandy scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

"The Women with Silver Wings," published in 2021, tells the story of how aviators Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran embarked on a daring experiment—to organize a special unit of women pilots tasked with providing training and other important responsibilities for the Army Air Forces during World War II.

Landdeck, a licensed pilot, spent 25 years researching the history of these women and their contribution to the Allied war effort. She is also a producer and consultant on several Emmy Award-winning documentaries and has appeared as an expert on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS, the History Channel and the television series "Mysteries of the Abandoned." Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Time, as well as in numerous academic and aviation publications.

The program will begin at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, with a special ceremony recognizing former Lee County Library employee Cathy Blanchard as the 2023 recipient of the Helen Foster Award for Library Advocacy and will continue with the Helen Foster Lecture from Landdeck. Following the program, Landdeck will sign books and meet attendees.

A ticketed VIP reception, sponsored by Friends of the Lee County Library, will be held before the event at 4:30 p.m.

“We are thrilled to host Katherine here at the library and introduce her work to our community,” Philip Shackelford, executive director of the Lee-Itawamba Library System, said. “The stories she brings from surviving members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots are amazing — true treasures to share with younger generations.”

Shackelford said the fact that the Helen Foster Lecture program can be offered free to the public is a testament to the longtime support the library receives from the community.

Made possible by support from donors and the Helen Foster Endowment, the annual lecture is named in memory of Helen Foster, who served as Lee County Library director from 1943 to 1947.

The first lecture was delivered in 1974 by Dr. Werner von Braun, the controversial German-American aerospace engineer whose research supported early phases of the U.S. space program. Other notable speakers featured over the years include U.S. Navy Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Pat Conroy, John Grisham, Natasha Tretheway, Jon Meacham and retired NASA astronaut Mike Massimino.

“My grandmother was a strong lady,” said Helen Fleming Bryson, Foster’s granddaughter and member of the Lee County Library Foundation Board.

Bryson noted that despite some physical limitations in her grandmother’s later years, “her desire was to bring the world influencers to Tupelo.”

All are invited to attend the program and enjoy learning from Landdeck.

“The Women Airforce Service Pilots are an important part of the U.S. contribution during World War II,” Shackelford said. “We are honored to have Katherine here to share that story with us.”