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[Ric Gillespie]

Betty Klenck Brown, now 91, is in an assisted living facility near her daughter's home in California.  Over the past twelve years, her role in TIGHAR's Earhart investigation has become a high point in her life.  Betty is quite frail but her mind is still sharp.  TIGHAR - and history - owe a debt of gratitude to Betty for her faithful preservation of her notebook and her sincere efforts to help us interpret it.  Pat Thrasher and I have not seen Betty since our initial visit to her in Illinois in 2000.  This Friday we'll visit her at her daughter's home and present her with a framed certificate of appreciation that she can hang on her wall at the nursing home.  This will be huge for Betty.  We'll take photos and shoot video.  We'd also like to give her a binder of printed messages from her fans that she can show to visitors,  so if there is something you'd like to say to Betty please post it here in the next few days.  I'll read the messages to her when we see her. 
Thanks

[Dave McDaniel]

Thanks Ric,
 Please tell Betty I wish her good health always and "Thanks for her huge contribution and insight to her notes on the post-lost radio transmissions. I BELIEVE!" - Dave

[don hirth]

Ric., 'Very thoughtful of you and the organization. I'think' in some strange way, that Betty
was 'meant' to note the things she heard! After all, most girls of her age couldn't have cared
less about a missing flier! For me........I still consider her notebook as a valid piece of the Niku
scenario. Nessie, Betty, the Montana boy, Emily Sekuli, post loss messages, etc. etc. Tell her
thanks from a senior from Mississippi and we wish her many more birthday celebrations.

[Bruce Thomas]

Dear Betty,

I relate fully with your listening adventures in 1937, when shortwave radio was the ultimate in telecommunications for that time.  Fifteen years later, I was in elementary school and we lived on a small island east of Puerto Rico.  My father was a ham radio operator, and as I lay in bed at night I could hear him communicating with others all over the world. Their signals might be very weak, but Dad could make sense of what they were saying, just as you made sense of what you heard. So I know, first hand, that quirky atmospheric conditions most certainly could deliver those words to your radio.

At that time a TV station had been established on Puerto Rico, a hundred miles away. Although much of the programming was in Spanish (and in black & white, not color!), my parents and I could enjoy a few English language programs during the week, such as I Love Lucy, Liberace, and Guy Lombardo. But it was on Saturday mornings, when there was no school, that I remember watching children’s cartoons and other programs from stations in Florida, more than 1100 miles away! Some moments the signal would be clear, and then it might fade away, but I was watching and enjoying a program originating from an unbelievably great distance away. Some people might not believe that, but you and I know what’s really possible.

Thank you for writing down what you heard that day. We are all indebted to you for your work. You have every reason to be proud of your part in helping to solve the mystery of Amelia and Fred’s disappearance. We are all proud of you.

Thank you, Betty!

[Cynthia M Kennedy]

Dear Betty,

All those years you kept your notebook, knowing that what you heard (and the notes that you took) were historically valuable and a tribute to the courage of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan.  Thank you for your persistence and for keeping the memory of Amelia and Fred alive.  Watching the CD of you as you told the story of that day when you heard those distress calls was a very emotional experience for me. 

With best wishes,

Cindy
TIGHAR #3167

[JNev]

Thanks, Ric - this is very generous of you and Pat.  Betty is a very special part of this whole story now, and what she has shared will be forever vital to the search.

I appreciate being able to share the following, please -

Dear Betty,

Thank you for sharing your very unique experience with the Earhart disappearance! 

Your story not only drew me much closer to the mystery, it also made me think of my own mother and her life as a young girl and how similar you two may have been in many ways.  You see, my mother was the first to relate details of the Earhart disappearance to me when I was a boy - and as I think about that I realize how keenly aware she was of those events of her early years and how deeply they touched her too.  That makes your experience all the richer in my heart and mind. 

In my mind I can see so well how such a thing as you have shared could occur and not only is it a fascinating event, it truly helps keep the search alive in me.  I cannot thank you enough for this - your telling of hearing Earhart calling out over the airwaves is a precious part of this quest.  Your notebook and story of how it came to be will always be a vital part of the whole story for me and many others.  That will be so for as long as there is still a mystery, and I am sure for long after it may be finally solved.

God bless you for sharing so generously.

Jeffrey Neville

[Bill de Creeft]

Thank you Ric for what you are doing to give Betty recognition after all.

Betty, I'm a retired pilot 81 years old, and 20 and 30 years ago in Alaska in our airplanes we used shortwave between our office and our airplanes...we used 2512 because the boats were on that too; that was before everybody switched to sideband...we frequently could hear boats as far away as Australia from our home in Alaska.
I once listened to a sailboat going into Darwin as clear as a bell from here in Alaska...
Thank you for sticking to your guns and providing us with part of the answer to what happened to Amelia...at least she did not go down into a cold ocean...and we know that in large part thanks to you.
I admire your persistance!
Bill de Creeft
Homer Alaska

[Jimmie Tyler]

 I applaud TIGHAR for this act of appreciation. It is an action that is superbly honorable!! Mr. Gillespie, please tell her how extraordinarily special of a person she is, and that we cannot put into words how thankful we are for her help. Tell her she is thought of and appreciated on a daily basis. 

[richie conroy]

Dear Betty

Thank you for proving that no matter how many times your story fell on death ear's, That one day "Just one day" You told it and someone listened and believed you. Hats off to Tighar 

I hope you rest easy these days, And enjoy knowing that the whole world know's about Betty Klenck Brown and her notebook.

So again thank you for sharing your story with us.

Richie     

[Jeffrey Pearce]

Hi, Betty,

I visited your St Petersburg home about two months ago. I was absolutely fascinated to be there. My soon to be 99 year young mother lives nearby in Bradenton, Florida. She is a better driver than I am. Betty, I noticed on the right side of your St Petersburg home(as viewed from the street) the radio equipment attached to the house. How I would like to talk with you, Betty. Please enjoy your very nice weather in California! Thank you. Jeff Pearce

[jgf1944]

Hi Betty!
    I just finished a research project on Fred Noonan, the man you heard along with Amelia. Your notebook gave me very valuable information that allowed me to speculate that Mr. Noonan had a traumatic brain injury. I see from your notes that you too thought the man had an injured brain. Sounds like you would have been a good doctor! All the best to you, Dr. Guthrie Ford

[Tim Mellon]

Betty, what an honor to be able to communicate with the very inspiration that convinced me that Gardner Island was Amelia's last landing.

Believe me, Betty, we will figure this out to its finality. I have seen the tubes and rectifiers that transmitted those messages you heard that day. They may have doubted you. They may doubt me. Truth will out in the end, as it always does.

[Don Dollinger]

Betty,

Thanks so much for sharing your precious teenage memories with us.  What you captured and shared adds so much to the human side of the story of these two aviators.

LTM,

Don

[Will Hatchell]

Betty,

Your very detailed radio notes of 1937 have been a tremendous aid in the search for Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. Without those notes, much less would be known today, not to mention that they have helped explain some critical aspects of the finds on faraway Nikumaroro. We can't thank you enough for coming forward and sharing your evidence with the world! You are to be commended for your contribution to TIGHAR, and the eventual and successful conclusion of the search for Earhart and Noonan. Thank you Betty and God bless you!

[Hilary Christine Olson]

Dear Betty,
                 Thank You for your  immeasurable insight when you heard the voice on the radio to write the messages down.
 At the time you must have been quite amazed by it all as we are today . Not only amazed but grateful to you.
Sincere Wishes for Good Health God Bless
Hilary Olson
Tighar # 2633