Page 30 - Sun Rays Febuary 2013

30 | SUNRAYS FEBRUARY 2013 ONLINE: SCTXCA.ORG
Betty Schleder has done it all. Be-
fore she married, she was a great
skiing enthusiast living on the
East Coast. After college she headed to
Colorado where she married Ben—a ski
lodge owner in Crested Butte. Their life
together has been one of risk and wild
adventures, and, since they moved to
Sun City Texas, Betty has been a final-
ist for competing on both The Survivor
and The Amazing Race television shows!
(“But getting so close doesn’t count in
life,” she said). She and another Sun City
resident even started their own business,
Green Graves and Urns, selling hand-
made coffins and cremation urns. Now,
as of June 2012, Betty is the Sun City
Representative for Honor Flight Austin.
Honor Flight Austin
Honor Flight is a nonprofit organization
that transports veterans to Washington,
D.C., to visit the memorials established
in honor of their service. The organiza-
tion has a primary focus on World War
II veterans, whose population is esti-
mated to be a little over 1.2 million but
declining at a rate of about 900 deaths
per day, according to the U.S. Depart-
ment of Veteran Affairs and the National
World War II Museum. The World War
II Memorial was also the last memorial
to be built, opening in April 2004.
Betty’s husband, Ben, is a World War II
veteran, and when she first heard about
the program, the nearest Honor Flight
chapters were in San Antonio and Hous-
ton. She applied to those chapters for
Ben, but to no avail; however, when the
Honor Flight Austin chapter was estab-
lished in 2011, she immediately applied
for Ben. Their Neighborhood Rep at the
time, Gary McCarthy, sent an email to
N13 residents about the establishment of
the program in Austin. Betty applied and
Ben was accepted along with 24 other
veterans to go on Honor Flight Austin’s
Inaugural Flight in June 2012.
Inaugural Flight
On that first flight, each veteran was
allowed to take one guardian—typically,
that meant sons and daughters, nieces
and nephews, but not wives; however,
because of the age difference between
Ben and Betty, Betty was able to go
along with him.
The veterans on the Inaugural Flight
left Austin Bergstrom Airport and flew
into Baltimore, where they then took a
bus to Washington, D.C., and attended
a banquet in their honor. The following
day the vets visited the WWII Memo-
rial—especially their state’s column—as
well as the other memorials in the area.
Then, they hopped back on the plane and
headed back to Texas.
Throughout the Honor Flight process,
Betty spent a lot of time talking with
the administrators. “They would call and
ask about Sun City, and I seemed to be
a point of contact here, just because I’m
so verbal,” she said. “They just decided
I needed to get involved in this program
and help raise money and, by the end of
the flight, they really had signed me on.”
“Betty’s Project”
After the Inaugural Flight, Betty started
working to raise money for Honor Flight
Austin. The chapter serves five counties:
Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Williamson
and Travis. Betty decided to take on
Williamson and Hays.
“Well, I knew that we had most of the
World War II veterans out of the five
counties, and I knew most of the guys
were here [in Sun City],” Betty said.
“And I said I would also take Hays,
because we moved here from San Mar-
cos—that’s where we raised our family,
that’s where Ben was so well known.
But I had no idea what I was taking on.”
Betty’s Project
By Maggi Jones
Continued on page 32