Foil: 13 Panel: 1 Column: 3 Line: 25

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
J. D. Huss

Elmo, "MO" the oldest of 5 children, was born January 1,1928 in rural Kentucky. The Salsman family moved to Tiskilwa, Illinois prior to World War II. As WWII ended, MO enlisted in the U. S. Navy, serving in the western Pacific. After an extended tour of duty at U. S. Naval Station Treasure Island, he spent the majority of his overseas service in the China Sea as Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communists took control of the Chinese mainland.
MO's initiation into aviation started after he returned to Tiskilwa in 1949. May's Flying Service, the Fixed-Base-Operator at Piper Airport (C41), Princeton, Illinois offered flight training under the government-sponsored G. I. Bill. Managed by three brothers - Marvin, Melvin "Mutt," and Walter May, their operation had picked up where the Princeton Flying Club had left off at the beginning of WWII. Marvin and his twin brother, Mutt, conducted flight instruction in Aeronca 7AC "Champs", Cessna 140s, and Piper J-3 "Cubs." With Mutt acting as the chief instructor, MO earned his Private and Commercial Pilot certificates and his Flight Instructor rating. In 1950, Mutt left May's Flying Service to return to the U. S. Army as a Department of the Army civilian helicopter instructor at Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort Rucker, Alabama. In 1951 Marvin May, co-owner of May's Flying Service hired MO as the chief flight instructor - he maintained this position until Piper Airport closed (and was plowed up for spring planting) on March 5, 1997 - he would fly the last airplane to depart from the sod runways.