By Melanie Stawicki Azam
John R. Delafosse (’72, DB) loved flying, and he loved Embry-Riddle.
A former U.S. Marine from the Texas Panhandle, John was a founding brother of the Sigma Chi – Eta Iota Chapter at the Daytona Beach Campus and helped design Embry-Riddle’s first university class ring. After graduation, he spent 40 years as a pilot before passing away at age 64 from pancreatic cancer.
“He had great experiences here,” says his wife Teresa Delafosse during an April 14th visit to the university’s Daytona Beach Campus.
So for Teresa, it seemed fitting to do something to honor her husband at the place that fostered his love of flight. She made a planned gift to Embry-Riddle, as well as additional immediate gifts, including establishing the John R. Delafosse Memorial Scholarship, to honor her husband’s memory. The scholarship helps aviation students with flight costs.
“My requirement is that your passion be so great, you’d be willing almost to fly for food,” she says. “He was willing go wherever and do whatever because he loved flying.”
John had that unquenchable passion for flying his entire life, despite obstacles he encountered, Teresa says. He built model airplanes as a child and worked as a teenager at a nearby airport in exchange for flying lessons. After serving with the U.S. Marines, John studied aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus, where he worked as a flight instructor. When he graduated, jobs were scarce, but he was determined.
“John had a VW bus and $200. He slept in his VW bus and stopped at every airfield along the way home to Texas to see if they needed a pilot,” she recalls. “He never gave up.”
After a variety of pilot jobs, he spent 14 years as a pilot at Ozark Airways. He flew everyone from professional sports teams to celebrities like Elvis Presley, who sat in the cockpit with him because the entertainer was fascinated with flying.
Like John, Joe Ortman, an aeronautics major at the Daytona Beach Campus and the first recipient of John R. Delafosse Memorial Scholarship, has a passion for flight. His love of flying led him to give up a full-ride scholarship for electrical engineering at the University of Denver to pursue his dreams of flying.
“I transferred here three years ago. I packed up my Honda and bike and came to Embry-Riddle,” recalls Ortman, who is from Colorado. “It was about 30 hours – I took two half-hour naps and hightailed it to Daytona.”
But Ortman was struggling financially as he neared graduation, so receiving the scholarship was a huge help.
“It was a blessing, because I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the semester,” he says.
Teresa says she was inspired to create the scholarship by the parents of Embry-Riddle alumnus Jesse King (‘03, DB). John was a mentor to Jesse, who died in 2012 just three months after John. Jesse’s parents Craig and Tanya King established the Jesse C. King Jr. Space Physics Scholarship at Embry-Riddle in his memory.
Teresa has also donated money to help John’s old fraternity. The money has gone towards helping furnish and maintain the Sigma Chi house, which is the same motel where, in 1971, John and his 11 founding brothers lived.
“They had loads of fun living in that ratty motel,” Teresa says.
Teresa met John years after his Embry-Riddle days, when he was pilot for US Airways, raising two young daughters after his wife had died from breast cancer.
“I was a flight attendant, and I swore I would never marry a pilot,” says Teresa, who now lives in South Carolina. “John was the only pilot I dated, and I married him. He was truly the love of my life.”
John retired from US Airways at age 58, but he couldn’t stay out of the cockpit. He worked for NetJets, then returned to Texas as a corporate pilot for the D.E. Rice Construction Co.
“John always declared he was going to fly until he died, and his wish was granted,” says Teresa.