The First Flight Society
Paul E. Garber Shrine
Honoring aviation pioneers at Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
Preserving Aviation Heritage
The Paul E Garber First Flight Society Shrine is housed inside the Visitor Center at Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC.
In 1966, the Kill Devil Hills Memorial Association was rekindled as the newly-incorporated First Flight Society. A keystone of the Society’s work today is the close support it offers the National Park Service at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. The Society established the Paul E Garber First Flight Shrine, a portrait gallery that surrounded the Wright Flyer reproduction in the Park Service’s Wright Brothers Visitor Center.
The Shrine is a revolving display of honorees, along with the painting of the most current inductee. The Shrine honors those individuals and groups that have achieved significant accomplishments in the heritage of “firsts” in aviation. Currently the Shrine is an exhibit with a digital display of honorees.
A new member of the First Flight Shrine has been inducted during the December 17 ceremonies every year since 1968 and is honored with the unveiling of their portrait.
Since 1968
Aviation Facts
First Flight Society
Named for
Paul E. Garber
The Shrine is named for Paul E. Garber, a curator and historian at the Smithsonian Institution. He played a key role in the creation of the National Air Museum in 1946, and was indispensable in the effort to construct the present National Air and Space Museum building in Washington, DC, which opened in 1976.
Garber’s dedication to preserving aviation history and his instrumental work in establishing premier aviation museums made him a fitting namesake for this shrine honoring aviation pioneers.
2025 Paul E. Garber Shrine Inductee
William P. Lear
The First Flight Society announced today that William P Lear has been named the 2025 Honoree to be inducted into the Dr. Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine located in the Museum and Visitors Center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, USA…
Preserving Aviation Heritage
Celebrating aviation pioneers and their groundbreaking achievements
2025 Inductee
William P. Lear
2024 – 2020 Inductees
2024 – Charles McGee
2023 – Walter and Olive Ann Beech
2022 – Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.
2021 – Sally K. Ride
2020 – Frank W. Caldwell
2019 – 2015 Inductees
2019 – Gail S. “Hal” Halvorsen
2018 – Katherine G. Johnson
2017 – Elrey Borge Jeppesen
2016 – Stewart Ross Graham, Frank A. Erickson
2015 – Jerrie Mock
2014 – 2005 Inductees
2014 – Mary S. Feik
2013 – William Edward Boeing
2012 – Charles Frank Bolden, Jr.
2011 – David Sinton Ingalls
2010 – Betty Skelton Frankman Erde
2009 – Frederick E. Humphreys, Frank Purdy Lahm
2008 – Herbert D. Kelleher
2007 – Dr. Richard T. Whitcomb
2006 – Tony Jannus
2005 – Tiny Broadwick, Captain Albert Berry
2004 – 1995 Inductees
2004 – Tuskegee Airmen
2003 – Wilbur and Orville Wright
2002 – Jack Northrop
2001 – Clyde Cessna
2000 – Donald W. Douglas
1999 – Harriet Quimby, Ann Baumgartner Carl, Jean Hixon
1998 – Joe Kittinger, John Paul Stapp, M.D.
1997 – Henry Arnold, Tom Davis
1996 – Paul Poberezny, Tom Poberezny, Lawrence Sperry
1995 – Francis and Gertrude Rogallo, Eugene Ely
1994 – 1985 Inductees
1994 – President George Herbert Walker Bush
1993 – Alan Shepard
1992 – Robert M. Stanley, Lawrence C. Craigie
1991 – Hans Von Ohain, Sir Frank J. Whittle
1990 – Yuri Gagarin
1989 – Bessie Coleman, Albert Hegenberger
1988 – Blanch Noye, Louise Thaden
1987 – Burt Rutan, Dick Rutan, Jeana Yeager
1986 – Walter R. Brookins
1985 – Bruce McCandless
1984 – 1975 Inductees
1984 – Theodore Ellyson
1983 – Charlie Taylor
1982 – Albert Scott Crossfield
1981 – Alberto Santos-Dumont
1980 – Benjamin Foulois
1979 – Albert Read, James Breese, Herbert Rodd, Elmer Stone, Walter Hinton, Eugene Rhoads
1978 – John Glenn
1977 – Lowell Smith, Leslie Arnold, Leigh Wade, Henry Ogden, Erik Nelson
1976 – Henry T. Merrill, Alford Williams
1975 – Cal Rodgers
1974 – 1970 Inductees
1974 – Edward Rickenbacker
1973 – Louis Bleriot
1972 – Grover Loening, William Mitchell
1971 – Thomas Selfridge, Robert White
1970 – Wiley Post, Igor Sikorsky
1969 – 1966 Inductees
1969 – Glenn Curtiss, Jimmy Doolittle, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins
1968 – Richard Byrd, Jacqueline Cochran, Amelia Earhart, Charles E. Yeager
1967 – Charles Lindbergh
1966 – Wilbur and Orville Wright
The First Flight Society National Advisory Committee is responsible for choosing the candidates for the annual Paul E Garber Award. Each year they choose from the honoree submissions and present their choices to the Board of Directors to vote on. Section 7 of the FFS Bylaws requires “a standing National Advisory Committee which consists of a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 members, with 2 members being at large, a chairman appointed by the President for a two-year term, who shall be a member of the society, one (1) other member from the society, and one from each of three other organizations or associations of outstanding reputations associated with aviation. The National Park Service Superintendent with jurisdiction over the Wright Brothers National Memorial shall be a permanent member of the Committee.”
The First Flight Society
National Advisory Committee
National Advisory Committee members:
Bill Douglas – FFS Member, Chairman
Tony Bruno – FFS Member
Dr. Tom Crouch – Curator Emeritus, National Air and Space Museum
Dr. Kuldeep Rawat – Dean, ECSU
Dave Roy – Vice President, AOPA
Keegan Chetwynd – Director, Military Aviation Museum
Dave Hallac – Superintendent, Cape Hatteras National Seashore (non voting member)
Artist
Gregory Kavalec
Gregory Kavalec, born 1945 and resides in Pennsylvania. He studied his B.S.M.Ed in art at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Kavalec’s artistic styles range from the realistic, impressionistic, abstract paintings, figurative sculpture in bronze, smoke-fired ceramic and traditional portraits in oils.
Mrs. Jonas Salk chose Kavalec to paint the portrait of Dr. Jonas Salk for the Medical School Collection, University of Pittsburgh. In 1994, the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service and the First Flight Society commissioned him to paint the portrait of President George Bush for the Portrait Collection at the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Many of his commissioned portraits are in the permanent exhibition at the Wright Brothers Memorial.
His award-winning artwork is in private and corporate collections including Bayer Laboratories, Carnegie Melon University, H. J. Heinz Company, IBM, Standard Oil Corp. and Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital. He is a member of the American Society of Portrait Artists.
