Pilot was an ace in life

Elia Powers

Madine Pulaski wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.

When her first husband, pilot Walt Parsel, told her she lacked the

flight knowledge to criticize him for in-air maneuvers, she took it

as a call to action.

“She decided in self defense to get her pilot license,” said

friend Link Mathewson. “That was her motivation, and she took off

from there.”

A resident of Newport Beach for more than 30 years, Pulaski died

Feb. 27 of pancreatic cancer at Hoag Hospital. She was 68.

Born on a farm in Adair County, Okla., in 1936, Pulaski, a member

of the Cherokee tribe, took a liking to small-town life. But most of

her life was spent in Southern California, where she moved to during

the eighth grade.

Pulaski’s flight career didn’t begin with a stint in the Air Force

or with lessons given by a wealthy relative with a private jet. It

began somewhat modestly, as a flight attendant with Trans World

Airlines, a company she joined in 1957.

Parsel was a pilot on one of her holiday flights, and the two were

married shortly after they met.

Once Pulaski got her pilot’s license in 1960, she flew all over

the world, including trips to New Guinea, Australia and Israel.

“She was the epitome of the adventurist,” said Rolly Pulaski, her

third husband. “She would go off and do the most exotic things.”

Madine Pulaski was also a flight instructor and a founding member

of the Orange County Chapter of The Ninety-Nines, an international

association of female pilots. She was the first woman to be appointed

to the California Civil Aeronautics Board by former Gov. Ronald

Reagan.

When Pulaski married then-California State Sen. Dennis Carpenter

in 1968, she went with her husband on a trip to the White House,

where she met President Richard Nixon and future presidents Gerald

Ford and Ronald Reagan.

The couple divided its time between California and Oklahoma, where

Pulaski bought property near her childhood home.

“She had an incredibly close bond to that community and to that

environment,” Rolly Pulaski said. “She taught people to love Eastern

Oklahoma and its rolling hills.”

In 1984, Madine Pulaski was introduced to Rolly, who had coached

one of her stepsons in Newport Beach Pop Warner football. An

architect, Rolly Pulaski traveled with his wife to Oklahoma, where he

helped her complete a major remodel of the farmhouse.

In her later years, Pulaski ventured into the business world,

opening a women’s only health club in Newport Beach called

“Madine’s.”

But her love remained with airplanes. She chartered flights that

carried doctors and dentists from Southern California to

poverty-stricken areas in Mexico, where care was needed.

Pulaski also tutored up-and-coming pilots, many of whom fly

commercial planes.

“She was an enthusiastic person, one of those people who seemed to

put others ahead of herself,” Mathewson said. “She guided people into

fruitful careers.”

And she also motivated Rolly Pulaski, who now carries his own

pilot license.