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97B  8
   
RALPH C. DIGGINS
Pioneer Mid-West Aviator

[[stamp]] FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE [[/stamp]]

Ralph C. Diggins was born at Cadillac, Michigan, March 7, 1837. 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 Marins Engineering and Naval Architecture in 1908.
Diggins began his career as an athletic director and professor of mathematics at Clarendon College, Clarendong, 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 this latter period he became interested in aviation, and with some engineering help 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 boys' class on the operation of his Curtiss plane and engine, together with the building of model planes, to enhance their studies. There he continued his flying practice with his Curtiss biplane and also flew a Queen-Bleriot type [[strikethrough]] monoplane to some extent. [[/strikethrough]]
In 1913 he gave up teaching to become President of the Associated Theaters Company of Chicago, where he remained until the beginning of Word War I in 1917.
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