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97B

RALPH C. DIGGINS
Pioneer Midwestern Aviator

Ralph C. Diggins was born at Cadillac, Michigan on March 7, 1887. During his early years the family moved to Harvard, Illinois, where he graduated from high school in 1904. He then attended both the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan and graduated in Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture in 1908.

Diggins began his career as an athletic director and professor of mathematics at Clarendon College, Clarendon, Texas, where he remained through 1908-1910. He then served in a similar capacity at the following high schools: Corpus Christi, Texas, 1910-1911; Cleveland, Ohio, 1911-1912, and Pasadena California, 1912-1913.

During the latter period he became interested in aviation, and with the help of some engineers, built a Curtiss-type biplane with which he reportedly taught himself to make short flights. With the Pasadena High School Principal, J.O. Cross, Diggins organized a course in aeronautics and gave lectures to a boy's class on the operation of his Curtiss plane and engine, and supervised the building of model planes, to enhance their studies. There he continued his flying practice with his Curtiss-type biplane and also flew a Queen Bleriot-type monoplane.

In 1913, he gave up teaching to become the President of the Associated Theaters Company of Chicago, where he remained until the beginning of World War I in 1917.

Diggins then enlisted in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U.S. Army and was first stationed at Rich Field, Waco, Texas where he completed a course of flight training as a military aviator, then was sent to Ellington Field, Texas, for training in night bombing, where he remained until January, 1918. At that time he was commissioned and assigned to the 92nd Squadron of the American