Her Dreams Take Flight

When at 29 , Kaye Ebelt, MT Eta and MT State Membership Consultant, was accepted to US Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, her life’s focus shifted from her feet on the ground to soaring above the Earth enjoying a bird’s eye view of the world that she inhabited. This opportunity enriched her love of teaching by helping her to focus on STEM education and opening many doors for her in the field of aviation. During her 38 years of teaching, she has taken this knowledge into her classrooms influencing hundreds of students through her summer aviation and aerospace camps and aeronautics academy.?

After the program, Kaye created a youth space camp, “Return to the Moon/Mission to Mars.” She turned her classroom into something reminiscent of NASA’s mission?control equipped with a student-sized orbiter simulator built by her father. She also began working on her master’s degree and taking flying lessons. She flew her first solo flight in a Cessna 152 in 1995.

Her mother was a kindergarten teacher and her father a Lutheran pastor and a forestry engineer. Both encouraged her to be creative. Kaye was born in St. Paul, MN. When she was in the third grade, her family moved to Miles City, MT, where her father built a kid-sized airplane hoping that one of his children would share his enthusiasm for aviation. In middle school, some of her friends started to take ground school flying lessons. She asked her father if she could join them. He replied, “Here’s a ten-nis racket. Show me what you can do with it first.”

When her family moved to Cut Bank, MT, she got a job at the airport and was mesmerized by the activity there. After high school, she played tennis at the University of Montana and began to work on credits for a degree in accounting. The first time she entered a classroom to help students with math, she was hooked and changed her major to education. Her BA in Education is from the University of Montana and her MS in Science Edu-cation with a concentration in physics, geology and astronomy from Montana State University.

Kaye enjoys working with elementary school students. For most of her career she taught at Target Range School in Missoula, MT.?For her master’s program, Kaye wrote a space mission script for her students and incorporated her own flight training experiences into the space simulation. She completed a Master’s of Education with an emphasis in Computer Technology from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA in 1995.

Kaye joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and gained experience flying with retired military pilots. She logged hundreds of hours flying the CAP 182 on search and rescue exercises.

In 1996, Kaye began teaching middle grades in Ancient, MT. She was appointed as the Missoula CAP Squadron Commander while acting as the Montana Wing Director of Aero-space Education serving in these positions for eleven years. Kaye holds the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Montana Aeronautics recognized her efforts by awarding her the Aviation Educator of the Year in 2001. She gained national recognition when she received the A. Scott Crossfield Award in 2003 and was inducted into the Crown Circle for Leaders in Aerospace Education in Cincinnati, OH.?

In 2007, she began teaching fifth grade math and science. During this time, she was among the first group of teachers to be selected from Montana to participate in NASA’s Micro GX and Reduced Gravity Flight. Her team designed and engineered a liquid density experiment suitable for microgravity.?

?In the spring of 2013, Kaye received word that she had won the Albert Einstein Fellowship. Kaye served a two-year fellow-ship in the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Engineering. As an Einstein Fellow, Kaye helped pioneer a course, “Engineering Design and 3D Printing”. In addition to her fellowship responsibilities, she attended a two-year mini-medical school at Georgetown University Medical Center and obtained her private pilot glider rating.?

After the Fellowship, she returned to Target Range School, teaching fourth and fifth grade engineering, second through eighth grade gifted and talented and fifth grade computer science. After school, she coached robotics. Her efforts earned her the Gifted and Talented Educator of the Year Award.

?In the spring of 2017, she retired from teaching in Montana and moved to West Palm Beach, FL to accept a position teaching fifth and sixth grade math, science and aeronautics as well as early childhood engineering at The Greene School.

Kaye continues to pursue new endeavors and challenges. She is a certified SCUBA diver, a certified private pilot, a ground instructor and a CAP volunteer. In 2017, she was appointed STEM Curriculum Director for National Headquarters. She has volunteered numerous hours in the Ninety-Nines Women Pilots and as an instructor for aviation camps and programs.?Whatever happened to that tennis racket?