Frank Hawks

She played basketball, took an auto repair course, and briefly attended college.

And in December 1920, Earhart took her first airplane ride in California with famed World War I pilot Frank Hawks.

From then on, she was hooked.

Here is history curator Dorothy Cochrane.

Well, let's start at the beginning.

I mean, she grew up in Kansas with a sister, her parents, surrounded by cousins, but even from an early age, she was very much a tomboy, had that sense of adventure, and that was fueled when in 1920, in Long Beach, California, she took a flight with Frank Hawks, and that really inspired her love of flying at that point.

There was the flying circuses, so almost like carnival-esque type of experiences, but even then, like, she saw the potential of what this could be and what this could unlock for her.

So she left home in search of that adventure, and she started taking flying lessons, but she did a lot more than that.

A young pilot of about Amelia's age, noting prospective customers, came forward and introduced himself.

He was Frank Hawks, and he would one day establish numerous records as a famous racing pilot.

Amelia told him she wanted to go up for a ride.

Frank Hawks glanced at the tall, slight build of the girl in the high-laced shoes.

He was unimpressed.

If she wanted to go, he told her, she would have to suffer another passenger in the same seat with her, and he nodded to his companion standing by the plane.