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LEAGUES ACADEMY PROFESSOR QUIT HIGH FLYING FOR HIGH FINANCING 1914 Plane Crash in Ohio Was Turning Point for Dr. Studenski Dr. Paul Studenski chats with (L) Allen R. Rankin, Secretary-Treasurer of Buckeye Federal, Columbus and Harold C. Esper, President, Main Federal, Columbus. [[image - Allen R. Rankin, Paul Studenski, and Harold C. Esper]] THE OHIO RECORD FOR FEBRUARY, 1961 It was a warm, bright sunny day in Cuyahoga Falls that Sunday, June 15, 1913. The amusement park at Silver Lake was gay with young couples out for a day of fun. In a few minutes they were to receive a soul-stirring thrill, much more exciting than a ride on the Ferris Wheel or Roller Coaster. A handsome young man appearing most dashing in his aviator's garbs, walked with a brisk, military strut toward a gadget that looked like an oversized orange crate held together with bamboo, bailing wire, friction tape and sealing wax. It was a 1912 model airplane, known by aviation enthusiasts of that era as a Curtiss-type biplane, and by others as "a flying box machine". The young aviator was Paul Studenski, a Russian born son of a well-to-do Polish family, a barnstormer of proven ability and presently professor of the Ohio Savings and Loan Academy at Granville and Professor emeritus of New York University. Before he gave up high flying for high financing, Paul Studenski made his living piloting thrill-seeking passengers throughout the air, often not with the greatest of ease. Paul won his wings in France in 1910 and hung up his googles in Cuyahoga Falls that memorable but most unpleasant day in 1913. He had been flying in this country for two years, from New York to Montana and down to Texas before he was grounding with a crashing thump at Cuyahoga Falls. He had accepted a job as flying instructor, field manager and chief pilot for the Silver Lake Amusement Park between Akron and Cuyahoga Falls shortly after his marriage. This was an opportunity he felt was promising. His pretty wife stood nervously at a distance as Paul made his way to the plane the first day on his new job. He was going to test fly the crate to assure prospective passengers it was 7
