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Jerrie Mock's historic flight began 50 years ago this morning

This photo ran in The Dispatch in May that year, on the day President Lyndon B. Johnson honored Jerrie Mock by presenting her with a Federal Aviation Agency gold medal in ceremonies at the White House. (The photo, by Dispatch photographer Sheldon Ross, captured Mock with a cup of coffee while awaiting final flight plans shortly before takeoff on March 19.)

Jerrie Mock was a 38-year-old Bexley housewife who took off 50 years ago today, on March 19, 1964, in her Cessna 180 with a goal of flying around the world.

She did, landing her "Spirit of Columbus" plane back at Port Columbus on April 17, 1964. She was the first woman to fly solo around the world. Previous attempts by women, including the fateful flight of Amelia Earhart in 1937, had not been successful.

Mock's historic flight took 29 days and 11 hours. Along the way, she typed articles for Dispatch readers back home.

At the end of the approx. 23,000-mile flight, a crowd that included Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes celebrated the completion of her trip and President Johnson sent greetings from Washington.

Mock never flew the "Spirit of Columbus" again -- Cessna later gave it to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum --- but she continued her aviation career in a Cessna P206, setting several other flight records.

Jerrie Mock is a graduate of Newark High School and attended Ohio State, specializing in aeronautical engineering. At 32, she began taking flying lessons and received her private pilot's license in 1958. She is now 88 and currently lives in Quincy, Fla.

In 2013, The Columbus Foundation created an award to honor central Ohioans who change things around them for the better. The "Spirit of Columbus Award" takes its name from Jerrie Mock's airplane.

Also in 2013, a life-size bronze sculpture of Mock was unveiled in the courtyard of the Works, Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology in downtown Newark.