Santa Paula Airport Mural dedication celebrates pioneer founders, pilots, and their planes

By Joyce Carlson Wendell Dowling, muralist, and an integral part of the Santa Paula Airport family, has been painting his favorite subject on a wall on Main Street over the last several weeks: the planes and pilots of our famous airport. And it’s a subject Wendell knows well. His wife, Lynn, is part of the Sammy Mason family. Sammy Mason was a well known test pilot for Lockheed Aircraft. Among the planes he tested for Lockheed was to determine whether a helicopter could fly upside down. Miraculously, with Sammy at the controls, it did!Wendell said, “I really wanted to paint this mural”. One can certainly understand why because of his many associations with the airport. And the Mural Committee really wanted Wendell to create this mural because he had clearly demonstrated his talent for painting, in intricate detail, the trains, cars and motorcyles in his previous Transportation Mural on Santa Barbara Street.With the mural now completed, the Mural Committee is pleased to invite the public to come to the Dedication of this stunning mural on Saturday, August 11th at 9:30am. Wendell, in his inimitable way, will tell the “story” of his creation of this mural.Further evidence of it’s being a family affair, Bruce Dickenson, grandson of Ralph Dickenson, one of the founders of the airport depicted in the mural, has almost daily checked out the development of the mural and will share his thoughts with us. Another airport family member, Mike Dewey, will also speak. Mike made his mark as a stunt pilot, performing in a variety of movies. His parents, Jim and Gwen Dewey, were both very involved in the history of the airport.