Longtime volunteer pilots Stephen and Joanna Bobko-Hillenaar have been selected to be honored at the 2023 Endeavor Awards in a ceremony that will take place under the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center on June 9, 2023.
Husband and wife team Stephen and Joanna have been volunteer pilots for Angel Flight West (AFW) for over 20 years during which time they’ve flown 579 missions and counting. Made up of a network of 1,800 plus volunteer pilots, AFW is a nonprofit organization that arranges no-cost, non-emergency air travel service that provides access to medical care, transport veterans, rescue animals and aid in disaster relief.
Back in 2003, Stephen and Joanna were living in Hawaii. They were both already vaguely aware of the AFW and indeed the whole concept of a non-emergency volunteer air transport service, as there are a few across the country. One fateful morning they received a mail solicitation specifically relating to AFW and decided to investigate further. The rest, as Stephen says, is history.
Now, the two reside in Carefree, Arizona having bought a property in what’s called a residential airpark, which is a community specifically designed around an airport where the residents each park their own airplane in a hangar usually attached to the home or integrated into their house.
“Right now, I’m sitting in my living room and I’m looking out the front door at our hangar,” Stephen laughs. “In an aviator’s mind I guess we really do live a blessed life.”
Just one example of someone who has benefited from their kind, generous work is 21-year-old Teylor Dunn. Three years ago, she was working at the Lincoln County Fair in Afton, Wyoming, when a gas explosion engulfed her and two colleagues. Fighting for her life, Teylor had second and third degree burns over 49 percent of her body. She required multiple surgeries and many subsequent trips between her hometown and Salt Lake City’s University of Utah Burn Center, which Stephen and Joanna provided.
“Teylor had to go back and forth for treatment and it’s normally about a four hour drive,” Stephen says. “At first, it took them over six hours each way, because she had to stop to get out and stretch. I’m told that your skin grows so fast that the doctors didn’t want her to sit for too long in one place. So she’d have to exercise her skin. We could take her down in an hour. She would go to her appointments and we would bring her back that afternoon and do it all in one day.
“I think for Teylor, we’ve flown her 28 times in total, she’s what we call a frequent flyer. And you just would never know now. So I’ve invited her to accompany me to the Endeavor Awards as my special guest and highlight her story in front of the crowd.”
In years past, the event has drawn some of the biggest names in aviation, names that even non-aviators have probably heard of, including Chesley Sullenberger — the US Airways pilot who landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York City in January 2009, Barbara Morgan — teacher and a former NASA astronaut who was on the backup crew for the ill-fated 1986 STS-51-L Space Shuttle Challenger mission and Scott Parazynski — a physician, former NASA astronaut and veteran of five Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks.
Headquartered in Santa Monica, AFW flies approximately 5,000 missions every year, which roughly equates to over a dozen missions every day. Missions are entirely funded by the pilots themselves and only the fuel is tax deductible.
“At the end of the day, we get to fly and we get to help people, I can’t really ask for more than that,” Stephen says.
The Endeavor Awards themselves were established by the Angel Flight West Organization. This is the ninth year and will also mark the 40th anniversary of AFW and its 100,000th mission.
Another volunteer pilot, Shakeel Mozaffar of Angel Flight Northeast will also receive the Endeavor Award at this year’s event. Mozaffar has flown more than 45 missions and 58,230 miles over the past 27 years, including long-distance disaster relief flights to help those in need.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
