From Gene’s book of poetry, “White Marigolds”:
Gene Slack Scharlau has been a radio personality in Hawaii, a radio and television producer and writer for the U.S. Air Force, a first lieutenant in the USAF and the Civil Air Patrol in Tennessee, a command pilot in the Women Air Service Pilots during World War II, a co-pilot (during the war) on B-24s and B-17s, an aviation writer and editor for several Tennessee newspapers and the Tennessee Bureau of Aeronautics, not to mention a wife, mother, foster mother and grandmother. She also holds a commercial pilot’s license. Over the years, she has published numerous articles in aviation magazines, women’s magazines and trade journals. Her poetry has appeared in the University of Virginia Poetry Journal, Flying Magazine, Tennessee Women and the Paradise of the Pacific Magazine. Her latest publication was in 1981, a short biography of Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie.

Graduate of fourth Women’s Flying Training Detachment, which graduated 112 pilots on August 7, 1943. Rank of 1st Lieutenant, USAFR. (www.wpafb.ap.mil/museum/history/wasp/wasp23.htm)