APRIL, 1966
THE, PI
MONITOR
PAGE THREE
A/lefer Merry - Go - Round At Inf
SPRINGTIME AND BUTTERCUPS WELCOME MR. BUTTERS - DCA agent
Jeanne Dial offers Tom Butters a bouquet of flowers upon his arrival in
Washington en route to Myrtle Beach, S. C.
Arctic Editor Visits MBC
One of Piedmont’s more inter
esting passengers recently was
racoon parka-clad, goateed Tom
Butters, publisher of Canada’s
northernmost newspaper.
The 40 year old founder of the
Inuvik Drum was en route to
Myrtle Beach for the Annual
Canadian-American Days Cele
bration in ihe Grand Strand area.
From 200 miles north of the
Arctic Circle, Inuvik is the name
of his home town, to Myrtle
Beach, South Carolina Mr. But
ters made the 6,000 mile trip by
air in a little over thirty hours.
^ Tom Butters was a guest of
the Greater Myrtle Beach Cham
ber of Commerce. He brought 30
reindeer steaks and numerous
samples of Muk-Luk to give
Myrtle Beach citizens a taste of
Arccic fare.
■ The bearded Mr. Butters is a
journalism graduate of the Uni
versity of Vancouver. His paper,
The Drum, is printed in four
languages, English, Eskimo and
two Indian dialects on what he
described as “an old beat up
press, located in a shack that is
entirely without insulation.” Mr.
Butters is also President of the
Inuvik Chamber of Commerce,
a string correspondent for the
Canadian Press and the Edmon
ton Journal and he sells insur
ance. He says he “writes any
thing, anywhere, anyhow.”
In describing the area in
which he lives Tom Butters says
“you find yourself next to yes
terday and next to tomorrow
too.” He expects a lot of Ameri
cans to be coming into Canada
because he says “you have con
quered the West and Canada is
a new frontier. There is a tre
mendous job to be done where
we live. There is an enormous
amount of building to be done
and men find satisfaction in
building something. The building
is happening so fast; it broadens
the dimensions of a person’s life
to live next door to adventure.”
Mr. Butters offered a charming
description of the town of Inu
vik, which means place of man.
They have a reindeer herd of
about 8,000 head. Fur trapping
and oil exploration are the pri
mary industries. In the town of
about 1,700 residents there are 72
cars. Inuvik’s first traffic fatality
occurred only last year. There
are 18 miles of paved road in and
around the town, eight of which
are from the airport into town.
The airport runway is graveled
which means that no jets can
land Decause stones might get
into the engines. They have DC-
6’s and DC-4’s come in and an
occasional Hercules freighter.
Inuvik has two taxis. The
Indians and Eskimos like cabs.
Mr. Butters said “we can ride
anywhere in town for 500.” The
climate he describes as being
sub-Arctic. It actually gets warm
sometimes he says. In a recent
issue of The Drum, the front
page headline was “THAW
FORTY-TWO DEGREES —
ABOVE ZERO!”
The Canadian said he “almost
fell out of my chair” upon re
ceiving an invitation from Mark
Garner, mayor of Myrtle Beach
to be a special guest at the
Myrtle Beach celebration. He left
by Bob Reagan
INT
Recently, I was attending a
meeting at the INT terminal
adjacent to Capt. Tadlock’s office
with several of the Piedmont
pilots. During a break we walked
out to the lobby and noticed that
the police were giving parking
tickets to those who had allowed
the time to expire on the parking
meters. I did not realize it im
mediately, but 1 was one of the
several to receive a parking
ticket. I proceeded to get my
parking ticket and return to the
terminal building where much
discussion 'was going on since
the two policemen were having
a field day by finding most all of
the metered cars in violation.
In the lioading Zone
There was one small black
Volvo parked at the loading zone
in front of the terminal building,
which belonged to Captain Mike
Holton. Someone suggested that
we put one of the parking tickets
on Captain Holton’s car since
he had managed to escape the
benefits up until that time. Na
turally I volunteered my ticket
because I knew how the good
Captain Holton wanted to be on
Top of everything. Anyway, the
Parking Ticket was placed on
the Captain’s car and shortly
afterwards he came into the
lobby and joined in on the dis
cussion of tickets since the two
policemen were still busy issuing
tickets to others.
Ticket Appears
Someone then called Captain
Holton to notice that there was
a Parking Ticket on his Volvo
which had been parked in the
loading, Zone for several hours.
i
PLAIN CLOTHES "COP"? — Posting parking signs seems to be the latest
fad around the terminal at INT.
his wife and four children in
Inuvik. Thousands of Canadians
visit the resort area each year
during their Spring Holiday.
Before returning to Inuvik,
Tom Butters printed a complete
issue of The Drum on the press
es of the Myrtle Beach Sun
News. In explaining the name of
his paper Tom Butters said, “the
drum is an instrument of com
munication as old as man.”
From reports of numerous peo
ple who met him, both en route
and while he was in Myrtle
Beach,. Tom Butters and his
“Drum” have done a lot for com
munications between the very
Northern and the very Southern
folks on this continent.
K
Captain Holton went out and
took the ticket from his wind
shield and verbally expressed
himself in such words as “those
dirty dogs”. This was overheard
by one of the two policemen as
they were getting in their police
car. One of them asked Captain
Holton “what he said” and of
course Captain Mike said that
he was just calling himself a
Dirty Dog (as if we didn’t al
ready know). The Police motion
ed for him to come over to the
Police car, which he did however
he did not stay since there were
no hard feelings and each of the
Policemen thought the other had
given - Captain Mike the ticket,
unaware that neither had issued
a ticket in the Loading Zone
area. Captain Mike then returned
to the lobby, still not aware of
what had actually taken place.
Suspect Accused
Several days passed and we
later heard that Captain Mike
discovered when he started to
send the money in for payment,
that the license number on the
ticket was not his and since it
was a Radio Call, he immediate
ly suspected me.
He then passed the word
around that he had sent the
ticket in without the money with
such statements as “I refuse to
pay this fine” etc. After I heard
about this, I typed a letter (with
carbon copy) and a few days
later went to another meeting
with Captain Mike in attendance.
There were several other pilots
present and three people from
one of the better known Aviation
Electronic Manufacturing com
panies also present. Everyone
knew most of the story up to
that point.
The Truth Comes Out
Just prior to starting the meet
ing, Captain Mike obtained the
floor and proceeded to tell me
how he had sent the Parking
Ticket to the Police without any
money and related what he had
written on the ticket. I then pull
ed a carbon copy of the letter
from my pocket and read it aloud
to the group. The letter was ad
dressed to the Winston-Salem
Police Dept, and in it I related
the story of how the ticket had
been taken from my car and
been placed on Captain Mike’s
car by someone else, I advised
that 1 had most of the details if
they were interested. Since this
was a carbon copy of the letter,
Captain Mike then pulled the
original Parking Ticket from his
pocket and said HA! I did not
send the ticket in at all. I then
reached in my pocket and pulled
out the original copy of my letter
and advised that I also had not
mailed my original copy of the
letter to the police department.
Captain Holton then stood up,
mumbled something and left the
meeting.
* * +
I later sent a buck to the
Traffic Department to defray the
cost which was worth much
more.
* * *
After the traffic ticket inci
dent, it was noticed that Captain
Holton was continuing to park
his car in the Loading Zone in
front of the terminal for long
periods at a time.
I felt that he deserved special
privileges, so I proceeded to
have a Sign made up which
authorized Captain Holton to
park in his usual space except
this would then make it look
more legal. The sign read as
follows:
RESERVED
for
CAPTAIN
MIKE
HOLTON
by a committee
of friends.
The sign was quite authentic
in appearance. It was on a stand
about four feet high with red
letters on a white background.
(See picture)
We have not heard from Cap
tain Holton on this latest ven
ture however I am sure he feels
indebted to me as always.
Around and About
REINDEER DINNER — Piedmont personnel attending a reindeer steak dinner at MBC are shown here
with Mr. Butters. In the picture, from left they are Fred Burton, Manager of the Myrtle Beach Chamber of
Commerce, Charlie Donahoo, PI MBC Station Manager, Mr. Butters, Fred Sheets, PI, ILM Sales Rep. and
W. J. Sigman, President of the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce.
Charles W. Plitt has been em
ployed by the General Aviation
Division. He is an instructor and
a co-pilot for the GAD flight de
partment.
Mr. Plitt has recently complet
ed six months of active duty
with the U. S. Marines Corps.
He was formerly employed by
Central Piedmont Aero.
He is a resident of Winston-
Salem.
* * *
Two cities on our system have
been named as All American
City. They are Wilmington and
Florence.
♦ * *
The company has purchased
two ex-TWA type Martin 404
aircraft. One of the planes was
bought from the Denver and
Chicago Trucking Lines, t he
other was acquired from Pacific
Airlines. Both are due to be put
on the line by May 15th.
* * *
The April 24th time tables
have been completed and mailed
out. The new cover features the
Discover America Campaign stat
ing that “Piedmontland is a great
place to start.”
* * *
Another new class of twenty
co-pilot trainees was begun on
April 20th. The last class is in
the process of finishing up flight
training.