To the young children of Arizona:

Do you want to fly? As youngsters, perhaps only a few days after we learn to walk we'll be outside and see a butterfly or a bird wing past our view. We'll smile with wonder, instinctively reach for it . . . and fail to capture it. But it has captured our hearts. We have been forever changed and must continue to reach for the chance to fly.

In 1878, 11-year-old Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville, 7, were given a toy by their father that was made of rubber bands, cork, bamboo and paper. The Wright brothers spent hours playing with their toy and trying to improve it. They got in trouble with teachers when they were working with the toy instead of their studies.

Twenty years later, they decided to pursue the age-old dream: sustained, powered and controlled flight by man. How could two bicycle mechanics, neither with any college or formal engineering training, do what countless inventors had failed to do? The Wright brothers worked together as a team, bound by their brotherly love and the chance to fly, and their youthful dreams changed the world.

In this special section, you can learn about the history of aviation in Southern Arizona as the 100th anniversary of the Wrights' first flight approaches on Dec. 17. The Wright Flight program rewards students with the opportunity to be a copilot after achieving an academic goal.

Thanks to the Wright brothers' legacy, any young person in America can be a part of the greatest aviation industry in the world. We need pilots, mechanics, aerospace engineers, air traffic controllers. Keep the dream of flight alive inside your heart and you will be successful.

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