ARIZONA NEEDS PROVEN LEADERS
HISTORY
Museumgoers admire Hall family heirlooms (left). Nova Hall shares his story over
a cup of coffee in Maricopa (right).
one weekend,” Hall recalled. “I understood photography, but I was not ready to paint. Leonardo pushed me and the next thing you know I had [a series of] paintings. He wanted me to look at flight through the eyes of a child and paint it as an adult. I was stunned. So much of it was this narrative of my grandfather and my own love and passion for flight and science and STEM and kids.” The result was a multimedia exhibition combining fine art and history. Hall strived to tell his grandfather’s story through a variety of channels, including videos, speeches and even a one-act play. The Creator Behind the Spirit of St. Louis is a play written as Hall’s thesis project in scriptwriting. It tells the story of Donald Hall in the last year of his life as he is interviewed by a young reporter about his role in Lindbergh’s historic flight. The play was first performed in 2011 in San Diego. Hall has also benefitted from the expertise of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU. The state’s PBS outlet shared the Hall story on its version of the Antiques Roadshow program. It was Soto who came up with the name Flying Over Time for the organization that Hall officially started in 2011 and was registered as a nonprofit two years later. Crucial moments Hall relayed that one of the most special moments on his quarter-century-long journey came early on with the publication of his first book in 2002. “As my dad held the book, opened it and saw it all there, that was one of the most meaningful things. He lived it but couldn’t write it,” Hall said. “Dad carried the tools of the story for me to find. That was definitely the most powerful moment.” Future moments, he claimed, were seemingly the result of a bit of fate.
“One of the most amazing things has been so many people that have carried the water to get us to this point. Even if I am about to lose faith, a golden nugget shows up,” he said. “It’s been a process to find traction. To be perfectly honest, it takes a lot of time and money, and I haven’t had a lot of money.” But what has been a marathon pursuit is turning into a two-and-a-half-year sprint to the 100th anniversary of the flight on May 20, 2027. Hall enthusiastically described some of the current efforts in motion: • HEC-TV, a leading producer of education and arts programming in St. Louis, is working on a documentary featuring Hall’s design and construction of the Spirit of St. Louis. It is anticipated the anniversary will result in interest from public broadcasting stations nationwide and beyond. • The Missouri Historical Society is planning an exhibition at its museum, the first to focus on Hall’s efforts. • A new book to further decipher the work of his grandfather. • Reaching people through air shows and similar events. He has completed several, including a recent drone expo in Las Vegas, with an ambitious goal of 100 in the next 30 months. Hall expects the next few years to go by quickly. “It still feels like we’re going to blink and it’s going to be gone,” he claimed. “They [Lindbergh and his grandfather] set such a high bar. It’s really challenging. There are so many levels to this story. It makes you question celebrity, it shows how words do have an impact and it shows how history really does repeat itself. “This is a transnational story. It really did connect the world, and it inspired so many pilots. You can’t comprehend how impactful it was.”
with the Lindbergh Foundation on projects to properly document his grandfather’s role in the famed flight. “Then I thought I was done,” Hall confessed. “The 75th anniversary had come and gone. The book came out and it had plenty of naysayers, but I pulled out the resources [to back everything up].” It was higher education’s turn to step in, namely Arizona State University and a series of professors and mentors who guided his next steps. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business, he learned he was going to be a father for the first time. Forced to adjust his schedule, he said he was looking for an easy A grade when he landed in a class led by fine arts professor and master painter Leandro Soto. “He saw what I was trying to do with my art, and I brought my book to his studio
SPECIAL EVENT PLANNED
Roots2Wings is a two-day Flying Over Time event scheduled to take place at Tucson’s Rillito Park Nov. 15 and 16. At the time of publication, Hall said the program may be rescheduled for the spring in conjunction with the city’s sci-tech festival. A gala dinner the opening night will be followed by a drone day with food, music and a drone light show. Attendees will have the opportunity to build and fly drones, which Hall said are a great entryway to also learning the history of the Spirit of St. Louis.
October 2024 | InMaricopa.com THE COMMON SENSE TEAM FIGHTING FOR DISTRICT 16 VOTE SHOPE FOR SENATE H VOTE TWO FOR REPRESENTATIVE: MARTINEZ AND LOPEZ Paid for by Shope for Senate, Teresa Martinez for Arizona, and Lopez for AZ. Authorized by T.J. Shope, Teresa Martinez, and Chris Lopez. TJShope.com MartinezForArizona.com LopezForAZ.com 15
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