Gulf Shores, Ala. – (OBA) – Gulf Shores City Schools' groundbreaking aviation program will be featured on a segment of Alabama Public Television this summer. The segment is part of an annual effort by APT to showcase tech and trade school programs around the state, around the time of the Career Tech summer conference. 

This year’s conference in Mobile is July 29-31.

“Basically, what they do is they're spotlighting career tech programs across the state in the different career clusters, and so we applied for our aviation program, which falls under the supply chain and transportation umbrella,” Director of Academies and Career Tech Jessica Sampley said. “As far as career tech goes, we applied back in December to be one of the schools that were chosen.”

Even though the Gulf Shores segment may be only five minutes or so, Sampley says APT crews showed up on the perfect day for the school’s aviation program.

“It just happened to be the day that we were taking our very first flight training student up on his first flight in our new plane,” Sampley said. “They were able to capture footage of that really historic moment for us. They got a lot of B reel of one of the same students who has an internship at the airport and with Gulf Air Center.”

That student is Walker Grogan, and his flight was in a plane donated to the program by Vince and Lynn Boothe, former owners of Saltair Flight School. It’s one of two airplanes in the high school aviation program and one of several exciting ways students can immerse themselves in aviation. See related story: Gulf Shores High School receives aircraft donation

“There were some maintenance things that needed to be done to it; we were able to get all that done last summer and fall, and then do all the test hours on it,” Sampley said of the donated plane. “We opened up flight training to our aviation students starting back in February, so we have three students, two who just graduated, who have been doing the flight training, getting flight training hours with us, and we are working on another build. So, there are several different projects going on over at the hangars now.”

Hangars that have now expanded from an original plane build program to house a second plane built by students, and another that’s being restored.

“We expanded from just two hangars to three and an end cap, and so we have the flight training plane in one hangar, we have the plane built in another hangar, and we also have a restoration project for a plane that was donated to us by the Gulf Shores Fire and Rescue,” Sampley said. “They donated to us a plane that they intended to use for simulations and drills. It just ended up not being viable for them, and so they asked us if we were interested.”

Work began on the plane, and school officials concluded it could be restored and would be worked on by students in the aviation program.

A second plane kit will occupy another space while students build the program’s second plane from the ground up. The first came from a nonprofit called Tango Flight, based in Texas. But Sampley said the school reached out in a different direction for the second plane build.

“We figured out that we can do it on our own, and we wanted to move to using a different manufacturing company after a lot of research on our teacher's part, and her husband, who is also a pilot,” Sampley said. “He actually went out and visited the manufacturing facility for this company.”

Haley Kellogg is the head instructor for the program, and her husband and fellow pilot, Rod, did the research on getting the second plane for students to build.

“We’re one of the very few high schools in the nation that have our own in-house flight school,” Sampley said. “Some others have opportunities, they partner with flight schools and outside the school, and their students have that opportunity, but they don't have their own, you know, plane and instructor that's all in-house, basically.”

Sampley said that the growing air traffic at Gulf Shores International Airport at Jack Edwards Field means a growth in aviation jobs in town. She hopes Gulf Shores graduates will help fill those jobs through the school program.

“There's a big, huge workforce demand in the aviation industry, and we want to be able to support our local airport, as well as the industry in general,” Sampley said. “We're always looking for ways to expand and provide more opportunities for our kids, of course.”

Those new opportunities will include getting college credits for classes taken during their high school years and reaching into lower grades to expand the program to more students.

“We're adding dual enrollment next year for students with in partnership with Coastal Alabama, and we have, you know, flight and space class,” Sampley said. “Aviation classes are now being offered at our middle school level as well, so we're, you know, always on to something new, and in trying to grow, grow it, and introduce it at an even earlier age.”