In the Episcopal Church, the late Bill Gordon is probably best known as the church’s youngest bishop.
In Alaska, he’s best known as a pilot.
The second plane of Gordon’s, aka “The Flying Bishop,” is being hung for display next week in the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center in downtown Fairbanks.
The yellow Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser with brown trim has a 35 1/2-foot wingspan and room for a pilot and two passengers.
I always thought the name of Bp Gordon’s plane was “The Blue Box” because it was paid for by a UTO grant through the blue UTO blue colored mite boxes. The was a piece of lore I heard from that great Alaska missionary, the Rev Walter Hannum, who was recruited to serve among the Innuit people by Bp Gordon and was a frequent passenger in that plane.
Was the Morris Thompson for whom the building was named, any relation to the Morris Thompson who was just elected Bishop of Louisiana?
Morris Thompson (d. 2000) was a prominent native alaskan who was head of an Alaska native corporation and activist for his native constituency. As I remember, he headed, or was a candidate to head, the Bureau of Indian affairs. He and his daughter tragically died in 2000 in an Alaska Airlines plane crash off the coast of California I believe.