Media Release | The Ohio State University at Lima

One of the country’s foremost experts on the Wright Brothers and the history of flight will be in Lima this fall as part of the Ohio and Its People lecture series.

Dr. Tom D. Crouch, the senior curator in the Division of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum, will present Ohio in Flight at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003, at Memorial Hall. Crouch is the author of The Bishop’s Boys, one of the preeminent biographies of the Wright Brothers, and is often called on by the national and international media as a source. He is quoted in the recent U.S. News and World Report cover story, “100 Years of Flight.”

He is the author of numerous other books and articles on the history of flight and aeronautics, including the Ohio aeronautical history The Giant Leap: Ohio Aerospace Events and Personalities, 1815-1969. His most recent book, The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age, celebrates the centennial of the Wrights’ first flight at Kittyhawk. Crouch has played a major role in planning exhibitions for such museums as the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapak, the Ohio Historical Center, and both the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of American History. He is also the chairman of the First Flight Centennial Federal Advisory Board. His talk on Ohio in Flight will combine the many aspects of his research and work on the history of aviation and aeronautics to date.

Dr. Crouch’s lecture is sponsored by Sky Bank.

Ohio and Its People is a yearlong celebration of the Ohio Bicentennial organized by The Ohio State University at Lima, the Allen County Historical Society, the Lima Public Library, the Johnny Appleseed Metropolitan Park District, the Lima News, and WLIO TV-35.

For information about Dr. Crouch’s talk, call the University at (419) 995-8284. The event is free and open to the public.