Foil: 39 Panel: 2 Column: 1 Line: 9

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Leader

Honored by:
Helen & Franklin Cizerle

Shirley Hulbirt Butts
(May 27, 1925 - August 26, 1996)
A native of Silver Creek, New York, Shirley graduated from the Fredonia State Teachers' College (now State University of New York at Fredonia) in 1946. She met and married Gerald (Gerry) Butts during her first teaching position in central New York State. Shirley taught K-12 music for 18 years then specialized in remedial reading. She was instrumental in developing the Individual Multi-Age Group Environment (IMAGE) program at the North Rose Elementary School (NY State). This program allowed elementary students to progress in each subject as their own pace.
When some friends started taking flying lessons and expressed to her that flying was a man's thing, Shirley (at age 38) decided she would fly too. Gerry and Shirley owned farmland where they cleared, seeded and built a 1900' airstrip with a T-hanger on the field for 'their' airport. During Shirley's flying years she owned four different Piper aircraft: a J-3 Cub, J-5, PA-12 Super Cruiser, and then her prize PA-28-180 Cherokee. She became well known as the "Flying School Teacher" since she often flew her J-5 to school, landing it in a wheat field behind the vice-principals home. During her years of flying, she was a member of the AOPA, 99'ers and New York State Chapter of the Flying Farmers of America, where she represented New York State as their Flying Farmer Queen in 1967, attending the international convention. Shirley also taught Aerospace Education at the State University of New York at Oswego.
Shirley flew to various states to attend conferences and take her family on vacations. This was her love, but she gave it up after one of her initial flying friends and his wife were killed when their plane went down during a storm.
Shirley retired from North Rose-Wolcott Central School in New York in 1980. After traveling the United States (via plane, car, and motor home), Shirley and Gerry settled in Swansboro, North Carolina in 1982. She fully enjoyed the Atlantic Coast until cancer defeated her in 1996.