Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson
BORN: November 16, 1959
DIED: March 26, 2016
LOCATION: South Charleston, West Virginia
Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson, 56, of South Charleston, passed away on Saturday, March 26, 2016.
Her life-long passion was flying. She obtained her pilots license as a teenager before she could drive a car.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Emory E. and Joyce Willis; first husband, William Blaine, brothers, David E. and Robert Willis.
Survived by her husband, Ernest "Ernie" Gale Jackson of South Charleston; son, Edward Gilland of Kincaid; daughter, Nancy (Lee) Welch of Shady Springs; three grandchildren, Cameron Lilly, Alexis Welch and Hayden Gilland; brother, Carmon Howard Willis of Beckley.
A Memorial Service to Honor the Life of Brenda will be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, April 07, 2016, at Snodgrass Funeral Home. Family and Friends may visit one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations be made to assist with the funeral expenses to Snodgrass Funeral Home, 4122 MacCorkle Ave, SW, South Charleston, WV 25309.
Memories of Brenda may be shared by visiting www.snodgrassfuneral.com and selecting the obituary.
Snodgrass Funeral Home, South Charleston, is handling the arrangements.
Article from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
Brenda Jackson got her pilot's license before she got her driver's license.
She took her first flying lesson at age 14, after her she'd seen a flight instructor showing off his planes at the Beckley Mall.
"I want to do this," she told her dad, back in 1973, according to family lore.
"Well, OK," was all he could say.
She got her commercial pilot's license in the late 1970s, soon after she graduated from Mount Hope High School. She was only the second woman in Fayette County ever to do so, she was told at the time.
Jackson, a flight instructor for Skylane Aviation in Charleston, died Saturday after the four-seat airplane she was in crashed on takeoff on the runway at Yeager Airport.
The other person in the plane, Arrin Farrar, 42, a student pilot, remained in serious condition at Charleston Area Medical Center on Monday.
"She loved life, she loved the Lord, loved flying, loved family," said Jackson's son, Ed Gilland. "She was nothing but a crazy country girl who just loved life."
When Gilland, who lives in Fayette County, called his mother in the mornings, the calls tended to stick to a familiar pattern.
"What you heard, 99 percent of the time, was 'How's the family? Now I'm going flying,' " Gilland said. "That was her in a nutshell."
Unless the weather was bad. Then she'd complain because she couldn't fly.
"Anybody who does flight instruction does it because they love to fly, not because they're getting rich," said Mike Plante, a Yeager spokesman and licensed pilot.
Jackson flew airplanes 10 to 12 times per week, according to Joe Beam, her boss at Skylane Aviation and the owner of the Cessna 172N that crashed Saturday.
She'd been a flight instructor since 2012.
Despite her early start, flying had not been a constant presence in her life.
Soon after getting her pilot's license, she married William Gilland, a drywall finisher. Family life and the couple's two kids soon took over and flying time was pushed aside. William Gilland died about 15 years ago.
"I probably flew three hours in 21 years," Jackson said in 2012.
She was a stay-at-home mom, working periodically as a telemarketer and cashier. With her son and daughter, she practiced a multi-disciplinary form of martial arts. All three became black belts.
About 10 years ago, Jackson's daughter began taking flying lessons and convinced her mother to give flying another go.
She took her first lesson in decades at Yeager in 2009.
She was quite taken with her flight instructor, a man named Ernie Jackson, who recently had lost his wife of 50 years.
"I knew he was going to be someone very special to me," Jackson said in 2012.
They married about a year later.
"She had my dad, and me and my sister, and that was one time in her life, and then she was single another part of her life, and then she met Ernie," Gilland said. "She lived an awesome life."
Beam helped her get her instructor certification in 2012, after medical problems kept her husband out of the air.
"She was meticulous in her flying and tried to do everything right and by the book," Beam said.
Jackson also described herself as a cautious flier.
"I've been called a chicken quite a few times," she said in 2012. "I say, 'I would rather be a live chicken than a dead duck.' "
Jackson is survived by her husband, her son, daughter Nancy Welch and three grandchildren, Cameron, Hayden and Alexis.
It's still not clear what caused Saturday's crash or who was in control of the plane.
It had been 31 years since someone died in a plane crash at Yeager.
Dan Boggs, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said he would release a preliminary report on the crash in about two weeks.
He'll work from the plane's wreckage and from video captured by surveillance cameras at Yeager.
The preliminary report will have factual information on things like the plane, who was in control and the weather.
A final report, on the probable cause of the crash, will take eight to 12 months.
On Monday, the plane lay in a spare hangar at Yeager's Executive Air terminal; windows shattered, sheet metal crumpled, doors splayed open.
The nose and windshield are caved in. A propeller and the engine block had been removed. So had the two front seats.
An air freshener, "new car scent," hung in the rear window.
As the instructor, Jackson likely would have been sitting in the right seat. Below the plane were a radio and a pilot's headset, still connected by cord to the cockpit.
BORN: November 16, 1959
DIED: March 26, 2016
LOCATION: South Charleston, West Virginia
Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson, 56, of South Charleston, passed away on Saturday, March 26, 2016.
Her life-long passion was flying. She obtained her pilots license as a teenager before she could drive a car.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Emory E. and Joyce Willis; first husband, William Blaine, brothers, David E. and Robert Willis.
Survived by her husband, Ernest "Ernie" Gale Jackson of South Charleston; son, Edward Gilland of Kincaid; daughter, Nancy (Lee) Welch of Shady Springs; three grandchildren, Cameron Lilly, Alexis Welch and Hayden Gilland; brother, Carmon Howard Willis of Beckley.
A Memorial Service to Honor the Life of Brenda will be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, April 07, 2016, at Snodgrass Funeral Home. Family and Friends may visit one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations be made to assist with the funeral expenses to Snodgrass Funeral Home, 4122 MacCorkle Ave, SW, South Charleston, WV 25309.
Memories of Brenda may be shared by visiting www.snodgrassfuneral.com and selecting the obituary.
Snodgrass Funeral Home, South Charleston, is handling the arrangements.
Article from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
Brenda Jackson got her pilot's license before she got her driver's license.
She took her first flying lesson at age 14, after her she'd seen a flight instructor showing off his planes at the Beckley Mall.
"I want to do this," she told her dad, back in 1973, according to family lore.
"Well, OK," was all he could say.
She got her commercial pilot's license in the late 1970s, soon after she graduated from Mount Hope High School. She was only the second woman in Fayette County ever to do so, she was told at the time.
Jackson, a flight instructor for Skylane Aviation in Charleston, died Saturday after the four-seat airplane she was in crashed on takeoff on the runway at Yeager Airport.
The other person in the plane, Arrin Farrar, 42, a student pilot, remained in serious condition at Charleston Area Medical Center on Monday.
"She loved life, she loved the Lord, loved flying, loved family," said Jackson's son, Ed Gilland. "She was nothing but a crazy country girl who just loved life."
When Gilland, who lives in Fayette County, called his mother in the mornings, the calls tended to stick to a familiar pattern.
"What you heard, 99 percent of the time, was 'How's the family? Now I'm going flying,' " Gilland said. "That was her in a nutshell."
Unless the weather was bad. Then she'd complain because she couldn't fly.
"Anybody who does flight instruction does it because they love to fly, not because they're getting rich," said Mike Plante, a Yeager spokesman and licensed pilot.
Jackson flew airplanes 10 to 12 times per week, according to Joe Beam, her boss at Skylane Aviation and the owner of the Cessna 172N that crashed Saturday.
She'd been a flight instructor since 2012.
Despite her early start, flying had not been a constant presence in her life.
Soon after getting her pilot's license, she married William Gilland, a drywall finisher. Family life and the couple's two kids soon took over and flying time was pushed aside. William Gilland died about 15 years ago.
"I probably flew three hours in 21 years," Jackson said in 2012.
She was a stay-at-home mom, working periodically as a telemarketer and cashier. With her son and daughter, she practiced a multi-disciplinary form of martial arts. All three became black belts.
About 10 years ago, Jackson's daughter began taking flying lessons and convinced her mother to give flying another go.
She took her first lesson in decades at Yeager in 2009.
She was quite taken with her flight instructor, a man named Ernie Jackson, who recently had lost his wife of 50 years.
"I knew he was going to be someone very special to me," Jackson said in 2012.
They married about a year later.
"She had my dad, and me and my sister, and that was one time in her life, and then she was single another part of her life, and then she met Ernie," Gilland said. "She lived an awesome life."
Beam helped her get her instructor certification in 2012, after medical problems kept her husband out of the air.
"She was meticulous in her flying and tried to do everything right and by the book," Beam said.
Jackson also described herself as a cautious flier.
"I've been called a chicken quite a few times," she said in 2012. "I say, 'I would rather be a live chicken than a dead duck.' "
Jackson is survived by her husband, her son, daughter Nancy Welch and three grandchildren, Cameron, Hayden and Alexis.
It's still not clear what caused Saturday's crash or who was in control of the plane.
It had been 31 years since someone died in a plane crash at Yeager.
Dan Boggs, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said he would release a preliminary report on the crash in about two weeks.
He'll work from the plane's wreckage and from video captured by surveillance cameras at Yeager.
The preliminary report will have factual information on things like the plane, who was in control and the weather.
A final report, on the probable cause of the crash, will take eight to 12 months.
On Monday, the plane lay in a spare hangar at Yeager's Executive Air terminal; windows shattered, sheet metal crumpled, doors splayed open.
The nose and windshield are caved in. A propeller and the engine block had been removed. So had the two front seats.
An air freshener, "new car scent," hung in the rear window.
As the instructor, Jackson likely would have been sitting in the right seat. Below the plane were a radio and a pilot's headset, still connected by cord to the cockpit.
Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson
BORN: November 16, 1959
DIED: March 26, 2016
LOCATION: South Charleston, West Virginia
Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson, 56, of South Charleston, passed away on Saturday, March 26, 2016.
Her life-long passion was flying. She obtained her pilots license as a teenager before she could drive a car.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Emory E. and Joyce Willis; first husband, William Blaine, brothers, David E. and Robert Willis.
Survived by her husband, Ernest "Ernie" Gale Jackson of South Charleston; son, Edward Gilland of Kincaid; daughter, Nancy (Lee) Welch of Shady Springs; three grandchildren, Cameron Lilly, Alexis Welch and Hayden Gilland; brother, Carmon Howard Willis of Beckley.
A Memorial Service to Honor the Life of Brenda will be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, April 07, 2016, at Snodgrass Funeral Home. Family and Friends may visit one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations be made to assist with the funeral expenses to Snodgrass Funeral Home, 4122 MacCorkle Ave, SW, South Charleston, WV 25309.
Memories of Brenda may be shared by visiting www.snodgrassfuneral.com and selecting the obituary.
Snodgrass Funeral Home, South Charleston, is handling the arrangements.
Article from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
Brenda Jackson got her pilot's license before she got her driver's license.
She took her first flying lesson at age 14, after her she'd seen a flight instructor showing off his planes at the Beckley Mall.
"I want to do this," she told her dad, back in 1973, according to family lore.
"Well, OK," was all he could say.
She got her commercial pilot's license in the late 1970s, soon after she graduated from Mount Hope High School. She was only the second woman in Fayette County ever to do so, she was told at the time.
Jackson, a flight instructor for Skylane Aviation in Charleston, died Saturday after the four-seat airplane she was in crashed on takeoff on the runway at Yeager Airport.
The other person in the plane, Arrin Farrar, 42, a student pilot, remained in serious condition at Charleston Area Medical Center on Monday.
"She loved life, she loved the Lord, loved flying, loved family," said Jackson's son, Ed Gilland. "She was nothing but a crazy country girl who just loved life."
When Gilland, who lives in Fayette County, called his mother in the mornings, the calls tended to stick to a familiar pattern.
"What you heard, 99 percent of the time, was 'How's the family? Now I'm going flying,' " Gilland said. "That was her in a nutshell."
Unless the weather was bad. Then she'd complain because she couldn't fly.
"Anybody who does flight instruction does it because they love to fly, not because they're getting rich," said Mike Plante, a Yeager spokesman and licensed pilot.
Jackson flew airplanes 10 to 12 times per week, according to Joe Beam, her boss at Skylane Aviation and the owner of the Cessna 172N that crashed Saturday.
She'd been a flight instructor since 2012.
Despite her early start, flying had not been a constant presence in her life.
Soon after getting her pilot's license, she married William Gilland, a drywall finisher. Family life and the couple's two kids soon took over and flying time was pushed aside. William Gilland died about 15 years ago.
"I probably flew three hours in 21 years," Jackson said in 2012.
She was a stay-at-home mom, working periodically as a telemarketer and cashier. With her son and daughter, she practiced a multi-disciplinary form of martial arts. All three became black belts.
About 10 years ago, Jackson's daughter began taking flying lessons and convinced her mother to give flying another go.
She took her first lesson in decades at Yeager in 2009.
She was quite taken with her flight instructor, a man named Ernie Jackson, who recently had lost his wife of 50 years.
"I knew he was going to be someone very special to me," Jackson said in 2012.
They married about a year later.
"She had my dad, and me and my sister, and that was one time in her life, and then she was single another part of her life, and then she met Ernie," Gilland said. "She lived an awesome life."
Beam helped her get her instructor certification in 2012, after medical problems kept her husband out of the air.
"She was meticulous in her flying and tried to do everything right and by the book," Beam said.
Jackson also described herself as a cautious flier.
"I've been called a chicken quite a few times," she said in 2012. "I say, 'I would rather be a live chicken than a dead duck.' "
Jackson is survived by her husband, her son, daughter Nancy Welch and three grandchildren, Cameron, Hayden and Alexis.
It's still not clear what caused Saturday's crash or who was in control of the plane.
It had been 31 years since someone died in a plane crash at Yeager.
Dan Boggs, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said he would release a preliminary report on the crash in about two weeks.
He'll work from the plane's wreckage and from video captured by surveillance cameras at Yeager.
The preliminary report will have factual information on things like the plane, who was in control and the weather.
A final report, on the probable cause of the crash, will take eight to 12 months.
On Monday, the plane lay in a spare hangar at Yeager's Executive Air terminal; windows shattered, sheet metal crumpled, doors splayed open.
The nose and windshield are caved in. A propeller and the engine block had been removed. So had the two front seats.
An air freshener, "new car scent," hung in the rear window.
As the instructor, Jackson likely would have been sitting in the right seat. Below the plane were a radio and a pilot's headset, still connected by cord to the cockpit.
BORN: November 16, 1959
DIED: March 26, 2016
LOCATION: South Charleston, West Virginia
Brenda Joyce Willis Jackson, 56, of South Charleston, passed away on Saturday, March 26, 2016.
Her life-long passion was flying. She obtained her pilots license as a teenager before she could drive a car.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Emory E. and Joyce Willis; first husband, William Blaine, brothers, David E. and Robert Willis.
Survived by her husband, Ernest "Ernie" Gale Jackson of South Charleston; son, Edward Gilland of Kincaid; daughter, Nancy (Lee) Welch of Shady Springs; three grandchildren, Cameron Lilly, Alexis Welch and Hayden Gilland; brother, Carmon Howard Willis of Beckley.
A Memorial Service to Honor the Life of Brenda will be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, April 07, 2016, at Snodgrass Funeral Home. Family and Friends may visit one hour prior to the service at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations be made to assist with the funeral expenses to Snodgrass Funeral Home, 4122 MacCorkle Ave, SW, South Charleston, WV 25309.
Memories of Brenda may be shared by visiting www.snodgrassfuneral.com and selecting the obituary.
Snodgrass Funeral Home, South Charleston, is handling the arrangements.
Article from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
Brenda Jackson got her pilot's license before she got her driver's license.
She took her first flying lesson at age 14, after her she'd seen a flight instructor showing off his planes at the Beckley Mall.
"I want to do this," she told her dad, back in 1973, according to family lore.
"Well, OK," was all he could say.
She got her commercial pilot's license in the late 1970s, soon after she graduated from Mount Hope High School. She was only the second woman in Fayette County ever to do so, she was told at the time.
Jackson, a flight instructor for Skylane Aviation in Charleston, died Saturday after the four-seat airplane she was in crashed on takeoff on the runway at Yeager Airport.
The other person in the plane, Arrin Farrar, 42, a student pilot, remained in serious condition at Charleston Area Medical Center on Monday.
"She loved life, she loved the Lord, loved flying, loved family," said Jackson's son, Ed Gilland. "She was nothing but a crazy country girl who just loved life."
When Gilland, who lives in Fayette County, called his mother in the mornings, the calls tended to stick to a familiar pattern.
"What you heard, 99 percent of the time, was 'How's the family? Now I'm going flying,' " Gilland said. "That was her in a nutshell."
Unless the weather was bad. Then she'd complain because she couldn't fly.
"Anybody who does flight instruction does it because they love to fly, not because they're getting rich," said Mike Plante, a Yeager spokesman and licensed pilot.
Jackson flew airplanes 10 to 12 times per week, according to Joe Beam, her boss at Skylane Aviation and the owner of the Cessna 172N that crashed Saturday.
She'd been a flight instructor since 2012.
Despite her early start, flying had not been a constant presence in her life.
Soon after getting her pilot's license, she married William Gilland, a drywall finisher. Family life and the couple's two kids soon took over and flying time was pushed aside. William Gilland died about 15 years ago.
"I probably flew three hours in 21 years," Jackson said in 2012.
She was a stay-at-home mom, working periodically as a telemarketer and cashier. With her son and daughter, she practiced a multi-disciplinary form of martial arts. All three became black belts.
About 10 years ago, Jackson's daughter began taking flying lessons and convinced her mother to give flying another go.
She took her first lesson in decades at Yeager in 2009.
She was quite taken with her flight instructor, a man named Ernie Jackson, who recently had lost his wife of 50 years.
"I knew he was going to be someone very special to me," Jackson said in 2012.
They married about a year later.
"She had my dad, and me and my sister, and that was one time in her life, and then she was single another part of her life, and then she met Ernie," Gilland said. "She lived an awesome life."
Beam helped her get her instructor certification in 2012, after medical problems kept her husband out of the air.
"She was meticulous in her flying and tried to do everything right and by the book," Beam said.
Jackson also described herself as a cautious flier.
"I've been called a chicken quite a few times," she said in 2012. "I say, 'I would rather be a live chicken than a dead duck.' "
Jackson is survived by her husband, her son, daughter Nancy Welch and three grandchildren, Cameron, Hayden and Alexis.
It's still not clear what caused Saturday's crash or who was in control of the plane.
It had been 31 years since someone died in a plane crash at Yeager.
Dan Boggs, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said he would release a preliminary report on the crash in about two weeks.
He'll work from the plane's wreckage and from video captured by surveillance cameras at Yeager.
The preliminary report will have factual information on things like the plane, who was in control and the weather.
A final report, on the probable cause of the crash, will take eight to 12 months.
On Monday, the plane lay in a spare hangar at Yeager's Executive Air terminal; windows shattered, sheet metal crumpled, doors splayed open.
The nose and windshield are caved in. A propeller and the engine block had been removed. So had the two front seats.
An air freshener, "new car scent," hung in the rear window.
As the instructor, Jackson likely would have been sitting in the right seat. Below the plane were a radio and a pilot's headset, still connected by cord to the cockpit.
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