Record Flight May Be Shot Down

In the last week, John Kevin Hill has had his ups and downs. The 11-year-old just completed a 3,500-mile coast-to-coast flight in an attempt to become the youngest pilot to cross the United States. His journey, which began last Friday from Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, included stops in Cedar City, Utah; Denver, St. Louis and Cincinnati. When his single-engine Cessna 210 touched down at Washington’s National Airport he was greeted by a crowd of reporters and photographers and his parents, Johnny and Patsy Hill of Arlington, Tex., who toasted his triumph with cherry-flavored Coca-Cola. John Kevin was accompanied by his flight instructor, Michael Fields, because he is too young to obtain a pilot’s license. But John Kevin was in charge all the way. “I never let go of the controls. I’d get tired but I’d just stick with it,” he said. He seemed largely nonchalant about his feat. “Well, it’s just kind of like a vacation. . . . For me, something to do in the summer.” John Kevin was given several awards, including recognition by the National Aeronautical Assn. as the youngest pilot to fly coast to coast. His bid to make the Guinness Book of World Records is up in the air, however. Guinness officials said no statistics are available for transcontinental flights by youths. And a former American Airlines pilot, Roger Johnson, of Ogema, Wis., contends that his daughter Sheila, now 16, made a transcontinental flight when she was 10.

--By a two-vote margin, the residents of Canadian City, Okla., voted to change their town’s name to Fireworks City, U.S.A. Mayor Linda Gray and Steve Gray, who is city clerk, dogcatcher and law enforcer, voted early and spent the remainder of the day on pins and needles waiting for the votes to be counted. But it just so happens that Linda and Steve are the only residents of the five-acre incorporated municipality. The couple work at a giant retail fireworks stand owned by William Manley, who bought the town for $245,000 last year. And how will they celebrate the name change? “We’ll probably holler and shoot off fireworks,” Steve said.

--Call it a sign of the times. The new president of the Westchester, N.Y., chapter of the National Organization for Women is a man. Ed Lesen, 49, of Yonkers, has been active in NOW for 11 years, only one of a handful of men in similar chapter positions nationwide. “It’s trendy but wrong to say that we are in a post-feminist era,” he said. “There is no issue that is only a women’s issue.” Lesen said he became involved with NOW at the urging of his girlfriend.