"Bill personified aviation at Lake Elmo for many decades," Gunderson said. "He was an early and longtime member of Chapter 54, building his own Acrosport Biplane and serving many roles including President (1999-2001). Bill was a CFI and Tech Counselor, and I was fortunate enough to take my dual instruction from him in my own J5 Cub on the way to earning my PPL. He was always upbeat, ready with a joke or a quip, and had a bottomless supply of entertaining stories. Bill was a founding member of the Holman Hobos aircraft club, which maintained and flew an L2 Taylorcraft (Elvira), and then a Champ after the demise of the Taylorcraft. For decades, on any given Saturday you could find Bill somewhere at a dozen different hangars at 21D helping with the rebuild or repair of some classic airplane. He taught me how to self-annual my own aircraft and introduced me to A&P Jim Montague who would inspect my work and sign off my annuals. Bill was a regular at AirVenture and was a camp instructor at Air Academy for a number of years."
Schanks, a man of sly humor and an unparalleled writer, was unopposed in the 1999-chapter election, which came just as the chapter had finally established a home base at Mayer Aviation. He presided over the creation of the chapter's website, and reinvigorated the Holman Hobos flying club, which he had helped start in January 1978 with the purchase of a Taylorcraft. Schanks called her "Elvira," the name of Speed Holman's wife. The club became dormant in the '80s, but Schanks and member Dale Rupp, who would later succeed him as president, revitalized it by taking on the restoration of Elvira.
"There were several attempts that fell by the wayside until Dale Rupp retired from his day job and took charge," Schanks recalled. "He organized the project and began to delegate the work. Some years ago, the club had purchased another airplane, a Piper Colt. We decided to sell that airplane and use the money to finance the rebuild of the L-2. That worked out quite well. It took about six years and based on the research that Dale did, it was restored to better than new authentic configuration. It flew as good as or better than it ever had and was just a joy."
The plane was destroyed in a hand-prop accident in 2002.
In Bill's last flight in Elvira, he gave a ride to his grandson.
In 2005, Bill started working on a 1945 J3, owned by Joe Donahue of Rush Lake, Minn. He generally worked from 9 to 3 each day. Originally, he worked on it in Jerry Sarracco’s hangar and then moved next to the CAP hangar on the north hangar area.
"My chapter experience were of a small meeting of a dozen or so people in the employee break room at Northern Airmotive in Downtown St. Paul Airport in the old Northwest Airlines hangar," he recalled in 2000. "After the meeting we would go up to the Savoy Inn for pizza and beer. God, I loved those meetings. I would look forward to them every month. I met some great people and formed some lasting friendships. It was grassroots aviation at its best."
During his last tenure as president, the chapter surpassed 100 members.
But when a storm wiped out part of Lake Elmo Airport in 2000, including the chapter's relatively new home, he led the effort to find a new home, which ultimately became the Chapter House still in use today.
The destruction moved Schanks to assess what it is that binds us to airplanes.
"To spend years fixing and tweaking and changing an airplane to make it just the way you want it to be and to take those trips and flights together, you and your plane, to experience that thrill of flight, to see all of those sunsets from 7 or 8,000 feet and to do all of those perfect landings, to hear and feel the smoothness of that engine, to build that bond between you and a machine. No amount of money can replace that," he wrote. "Only the people who have experienced that feeling can know and understand."
Near the end of his term as chapter president, he retired as the chef for the St. Thomas priests. He was an accomplished chef, thanks, perhaps to the fact his parents were in the food management business.
"He was a great guy and was president when I first joined the chapter," chapter member Tom Gibbons recalled this week in a message to Schanks' son, Bill Jr. "He also inspected my Pulsar homebuilt aircraft in a couple of early inspections, including one with my first engine start up. Bill will be missed at the Lake Elmo airport for sure!"
"So short for a man with such a varied and interesting history. I never knew he was a veteran. I believe he flew ag planes. Was trained as a bartender, cooked for the priests at St. Thomas (and shared jokes you’d never think a priest would tell). What a wonderful man. There must be hours worth of stories!" John Renwick added.
A memorial visitation will be held 4:00 - 7:00 pm Monday, November 4 at Mueller-Bies Funeral Home (Roseville), 2130 N. Dale St. at County Rd. B.
