Foil: 39 Panel: 4 Column: 1 Line: 11

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Leader

Honored by:
Dennis, Sheri, Brenda, Becky, Byrl, Jeff, Melissa Skovgaard

Ray Skovgaard's first flight was on February 15, 1955, in Piper PA-11. He was 31 years old. His last flight was on September 16, 1988, in a Cessna 210. He was then 65. In those 34 years and seven months he flew 22,882.5 hours. The largest airplane he ever flew as a pilot-in-command was a Piper Cheyenne.

Most of Ray's flying time was accumulated as an on-demand air taxi pilot in the northern Rocky Mountain West, often in support of the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management (BLM) fire-fighting efforts, or air ambulance. His flight time included nearly 1,700 hours as a flight instructor. At various times in his career he was an aircraft salesman, Fixed Base Operator (FBO), FBO owner, check airman, and chief pilot. He was the epitome of a general aviation aircraft owner and pilot under Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 135.

He was born Ove Ray Skovgaard on July 27,1923, in a farmhouse near the town of Fullerton, Dickey County, North Dakota. He was the second child, and oldest boy, in the family of nine children of Emil Peter Skovgaard and Sarah Madama Montgomery Skovgaard. Emil followed two of his older brothers from the Danish island of Bjornhom to the small North Dakota town of LaMoure. Emil arrived in the United States in 1917, passing through Ellis Island before arriving in LaMoure. Sarah's family had arrived in America before the Revolutionary War, settling primarily in Pennsylvania. Some of her forbearers were contemporaries and comrades of Daniel Boone.

Ray attended country schools in the LaMoure area, graduating from LaMoure High School. In 1947, he married Theresa Estellene Palensky. In 1949, Ray started his own business, Skovgaard Service. Originally this was an Allis-Chalmers farm implement dealership. In 1952 Skovgaard Service also became a Buick dealership.

In 1948, Ray and Theresa started their family, when the first of seven children was born. The last came in 1961. Through the early and mid-1950's, Ray was a successful businessman and community leader. In 1955, he began to realize a life-long dream when he began learning to fly. His instructor was Oscar Ness, a former Naval Aviator and long-time agricultural pilot from Lisbon, North Dakota, another small town near LaMoure.

In June of 1955, over the tearful protests of his children, Ray traded the family boat for his first airplane, a Luscombe 8A. With that airplane, he flew as far as Minneapolis and Chicago before receiving his private license in October 1955.

In December 1955, Ray's original Luscombe 8A was replaced with a newer and more luxurious model, a Luscombe 8E. This model meant an increase in power from 65 to 85 horsepower, the addition of an electrical system, and a radio receiver. There was, however, no transmitter. Ray made several trips in this airplane to Minneapolis, as well as Sheridan, Wyoming. In May of 1957, Ray passed his commercial check ride flying this airplane.