EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

The lure of hard roads and open skies
by Peggy Boyer Long

In the 1930s, Margie Dragoo left the farm. In the 1940s, she managed to leave the ground altogether.

At least for a time.

While her husband fought in Europe, Margie took up flying stateside and earned a pilot's license at the new airfield in Champaign. The freedom to soar above Illinois' cornfields suited her just fine. "Me and my flying machine," she scrawled across the back of a photo dated June 3, 1944.

Margie had planned to join the civilians who helped deliver wartime mail. She never fulfilled the goal, but that was neither here nor there to me. When I was growing up in Decatur in the 1950s, none of my friends had mothers who knew how to fly an airplane. That seemed thrilling enough.

In fact, when my mother took it up, flying was a relatively new way to deliver Illinoisans from one place to another. And government was just getting involved. Through the '20s and '30s, planes were used mostly to deliver mail. But the war helped make flying popular, and passenger service was growing.

Now Illinois is dotted with airports, and they make a sizable contribution to the state's economy. Nevertheless, government has pulled out of the business of regulating air travel, sending some downstate airports into an economic nosedive. Frank Vinluan reports that many, including the University of Illinois Willard Airport in Champaign where my mother learned to fly, are devising creative strategies to boost passenger traffic. His story begins on page 18.

Our cover article by Gayle Worland is about another means of transporting Illinoisans. Beginning on page 14, Worland details the looming political battle over the federal highway bill. Congress is set to tackle a rewrite this fall, and Illinois has reason to worry. We've been a winner when it comes to federal dollars for building and maintaining Illinois' roadways. Now other states want a bigger share of a smaller budget.

Roads have always been a lifeline for Illinoisans. In the 1920s, when my mother was growing up, the federal government began offering road- building help to the states. And Gov. Len Small managed to pave an extensive system of hard roads. After World War II, the federal government added a massive national highway system.

Transportation has changed a lot in the century and a half since my family began farming in what is now Douglas County. Mostly, the changes have been about increased opportunities to come and go. Now Willard is nearby. A hard road runs in front of the house my great-great-grandfather built. And U.S. 36 cuts across our ground. And sometimes I manage to make the trip back. �

Ready for the hard road. Margie Dragoo,brother Don and an unidentified companion in Douglas County, east central Illinois. The picture was probably taken in the late 1920s. Margie and her "flying machine" at the airport in Champaign, June 3, 1944. The field was formally dedicated the following year. It was later renamed the University of Illinois-Willard Airport.

4 / September 1997 Illinois Issues