Pilot, pastor, Easter hero

Longtime flight instructor and aviation mechanic Glen Butts and former airborne infantryman and Civil Air Patrol member Dan Sharpe have flown countless times for a plethora of purposes, and Saturday is scheduled to be their second together for a meaningful mission.

Butts will be the pilot and Sharpe the bombardier as hundreds of Easter eggs will be dropped, weather pending, out of a Cessna 172 Skyhawk over Grafton High School.

The event has become an Easter tradition of Grafton’s New Life Church.

Butts, 74, who has certificates from Federal Aviation Administration for 50 years of service as a certified pilot and certified mechanic has flown the mission the last four years. He is a Gold Seal Flight Instructor for West Bend Air and a Church of the Nazarene pastor at a nearby church.

“It’s challenging but it’s just fun,” Butts said.

This will be Sharpe’s second excursion. The Port Washington resident is more accustomed to other items exiting aircraft during flights, namely himself.

“I used to jump out of airplanes,” he said.

Both have the experience and expertise required to serve as the Easter bunny in the air.

Sharpe works as the product safety manager for Rockwell Automation, as well as weekend safety campus officer at Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon and as the New Life Church’s director of safety and security.

“Safety is a big part of my life,” he said.

Butts is in the same camp. He has never had an air emergency.

“I don’t have any of those stories because I haven’t been gutsy,” he said. “It’s better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.”

Butts’ experience in mechanics helps his flight students understand more than how to fly, as evidenced by multiple airplane parts sitting in his office at the airport.

“A pilot needs to know his airplane. He can’t get on his cell phone and call Triple A,” he said.

Butts got hooked on aviation as a child when he visited the airport and military base in Duluth, Minn., and saw the jets. He checked out books at the library of pilot heroes of World War II.

He completed his first solo flight at 16 that started a career spanning the country and beyond.

He earned a degree in aviation technology from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, where he met his wife, Shelia. After the two were engaged, Butts had a cross-country trip planned and asked his wife to come along.

“I need you to go with me on this because if this is of no interest to you, we’re done,” he said.

“We’ve been married 51 years.”

Shelia also works at the West Bend Airport as a proctor for FAA exams.

Butts’ career took him to Colombia flying planes for a Wycliffe Bible Translators mission trip in which missionaries developed an alphabet and the first written word for people living in the bush who communicated with a series of clicking sounds.

He spent time in his native city of Escanaba, Mich., as its airport manager and went back to LeTourneau to get his four-year degree that was required for an airport manager he was hired for in Oshkosh.

He never took the Oshkosh job. Butts became a certified emergency medical technician, police officer and firefighter and operated the ambulance for Longview through the university. He was asked to take over as administrator of the ambulance service but said he was only staying 18 months to get his degree. The school told him he and his wife could attend for free.

“I said when do I start?” Butts said.

He stayed seven years.

Butts came to West Bend Air in 2008 to do charter flights and eventually took over as chief flight instructor.

He arrived for the interview in a snowstorm and was hired on the spot.

His route to becoming pastor at Eagle’s Wings Nazarene Fellowship a mile from the airport was similar. Butts had been studying to become a deacon, a process similar to becoming an elder, or pastor. He offered to fill in at the church, which hadn’t had a pastor for eight months, and was given the full-time job.

That eventually led Butts to drop his charter flights but keep his instruction job.

Both careers are in his family. Butts’ father was a pastor and he wanted to be a pilot but developed an illness that prevented it. Butts’ oldest son joined the Navy, working in radio communications an E6-B Mercury plane that has a five-mile antenna to communicate with submarines, and his youngest son worked on Black Hawk helicopters, earning a purple heart on one of the three tours in Afghanistan.

Come Saturday, April 4, Butts plans to make three passes to drop the eggs at the high school. The first is a test run to make sure everything is in order. The next two is for  Sharpe to drop the plastic eggs with candy or a trinket inside.

“The key for me is being able to stick your head out of a moving aircraft. You get a better view of the crowd coming up,” he said.

The ground team sets off a smoke signal so Butts and Sharpe can judge the wind.

Sharpe used his engineering background to concoct a five feet-long tube of vacuum-sealed bags to let out the eggs, then uses his expertise in physics to let them out at the right time knowing where they will fall.

He’s also accustomed to the turbulence.

“It’s not that smooth of a ride. In a real small aircraft you feel everything,” he said. “I’ve been in the back of bumpy airplanes and having jumped out of them, it doesn’t really faze me.” 

Despite being in the air, Sharpe can sense the excitement.

“When you’re head’s out and doing the drop, I can hear the kids yelling,” he said. “Glen will bring throttle back and put flaps out so going as slow as possible without stalling.”

The event includes photos with the Easter bunny and Flip’s Mini Donuts and Chick-fil-A food trucks. Overflow parking is at Kapco. Gates open at 9:30 a.m. with the drop scheduled for 10:30 a.m.