CASTING AMELIA EARHART'S PLACE IN LOCAL HISTORY.

Byline: Holly Edwards Staff Writer

NORTH HOLLYWOOD - In a letter written midway through her ill-fated trans-world flight, Amelia Earhart told her husband that she fully understood the dangers involved in the effort.

``But women must try to do things as men have tried,'' she wrote in the letter, eventually published in a book by her late husband, New York publisher George Putnam. ``When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.''

Today - 65 years after Earhart vanished during her around-the-world flight - a group of civic leaders and aviation enthusiasts will announce a year-long effort to create a bronze statue in honor of the famous aviator's courage and inspiration.

The bronze statue will replace a deteriorating fiberglass statue of Earhart that has stood at the corner of Magnolia Boulevard and Tujunga Avenue for more than three decades.

``The fact is, we consider her a Valley girl because most of her great accomplishments were made when she lived in Toluca Lake,'' said Guy Weddington McCreary, president of the Amelia Earhart Historical and Educational Committee, the group leading the effort to create the bronze statue. ``She has been a symbol of courage and determination for generations of women and men.''

Earhart and Putnam lived in a Spanish colonial-style home on Valley Spring Lane in Toluca Lake, and Earhart flew her plane out of what is now the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport.

Roughly $50,000 has been raised so far to create the statue, and an additional $100,000 must be raised during the next year to pay for the project, McCreary said.

The 8-foot-tall likeness of Earhart holding an airplane propeller will be removed in the wee hours of Friday morning, cast into a mold and used to create a permanent bronze statute, he said.

The new statue will be put into place at the park on July 24, 2003, on what would have been Earhart's 106th birthday.

Local female pilots who began their aviation careers during World War II applauded the effort to memorialize Earhart, but said she should be remembered for her character, not her piloting skills.

``I always admired Amelia Earhart, but she made some very bad decisions on that last flight, and there were women of her day that were much better pilots,'' said Betty Williams of Woodland Hills, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. ``But she'll always be held up as a role model because she pursued her dream and was a pioneer in her field.''

Lee Cameron, 91, of North Hollywood - a retired commercial pilot who still flies his plane out of Whiteman Airport in Pacoima - recalled meeting Earhart in 1932 at a Cleveland, Ohio airport.

Cameron said that, after he gave Earhart a lift to a local hotel in his 1923 Chevrolet, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

``I'm the only man still living who kissed Amelia Earhart,'' he said. ``She was a real jewel, a pioneer and an eager beaver. She was an accomplished pilot, a mechanic and she listened to everybody and profited from their mistakes. She dove right into everything she did.''

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Photo:

Replacing this deteriorating fiberglass statue of Amelia Earhart is the goal of a fund-raising effort. The statue is at Magnolia Boulevard and Tujunga Avenue in North Hollywood.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer