AP: Searching for Earhart is his life's quest, despite doubters

This 1937 photo shows Amelia Earhart before takeoff in Miami for an attempted round-the-world flight. Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in the South Pacific in July 1937, while on one of the last legs of that journey. (The Miami Herald via AP)


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/daee069ff95641bbb2fa853c12944d90/searching-earhart-his-lifes-quest-despite-doubters

OXFORD, Pa. (AP) — Ric Gillespie tells a story well. He knows how to get people intrigued and, in some cases, to persuade them to give him money, not unlike the legendary pilot for whom he's spent much of his life searching — Amelia Earhart.

At first, the man who looks a bit like a weather-worn sea captain balks at the oft-repeated notion that his ability to charm, and maybe even his time on stage in high school, helped get him where he is. Then, Gillespie shrugs and capitulates, with a slight smile.

"No apologies for my charisma. I put it, I hope, to very good use," he says, sitting on the back porch of the old farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania that is both his home and office of the organization he and his wife, Pat Thrasher, co-founded — The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR.

The group's mission — and his life's goal for more than 25 years — has been to solve the mystery of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, who disappeared in the South Pacific on July 2, 1937, during what was supposed to be a round-the-world flight.

FULL story at link.