River Valley native, UA hall of fame inductee recalls work on F-16s

FORT SMITH — The first woman inducted into the College of Engineering Hall of Fame at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville worked with aircraft and indirectly helped a large Fort Smith project. She is also a River Valley native.

Lee Lane, a native of Paris, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in April. Her work started decades earlier when she attended the University of Arkansas in 1958 to study chemistry. Lane said she enjoyed the subject because it was clear and precise, but she soon realized how isolating work in that field could be.

“There’s no camaraderie or people working together. You work alone, mostly, in chemical research. And it turned out I liked people. I had never considered that,” she said.

Lane returned to the university to study operations research engineering, receiving her master’s degree in 1974 and doctorate in 1976.

Buck Johns, Lane’s brother and another Hall of Fame inductee, recalled in Lee’s induction notes the university did not acknowledge Lee was the first woman to attain a master’s degree in engineering until she was recognized as the first woman to attain a doctorate in engineering.

“It was an anomaly,” said Kim Needy, dean of the College of Engineering and first woman to lead the college. “She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in engineering. She did it as a single parent. She was a trailblazer not only for her degree, but for being one of the few women to work in the industry.”

Lane taught after graduation.

“I went into teaching because I had two small children and the hours were more flexible,” she said. “I thought it would work better with the kids because they were in grade school, so I was trying to make it work. I was teaching at the University of San Diego in California, and their system was very poor. The University of Arkansas is a much better school if you want to learn something.”

Lane said many of her students at the University of San Diego weren’t interested in learning, which made it hard to teach. But one of her classes included men from the aerospace company General Dynamics, and they offered her an opportunity to work with them.

“That was perfect,” she said. “We were working on serious research. It was the military side. Most of the work I did was on airplanes. There was a goal, you knew what the goal was, you knew where you were going and you knew how important it was.”

Lane said she worked on several different planes and projects, but thinks the F-16 is the prettiest.

“You just can’t beat it,” she said. “The lines are so straight, and it’s just so pretty when it flies. It’s really magnificent.”

The F-16 happens to be one of the planes involved in the Air Force’s Foreign Military Sales Pilot Training Center program.

Ebbing Air National Guard Base at Fort Smith Regional Airport was selected in 2021

as the Air Force’s preferred location for a pilot training center for Singapore and other countries participating in the Foreign Military Sales program. The proposal would accommodate up to 24 foreign Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II aircraft and move 12 General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons from the Singapore Air Force, currently at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Ariz.

Ebbing is the preferred location. The Air Force chose Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Mich., if Fort Smith can’t host the center for some reason.

Lane is retired, but said she is excited about the project.

She was also very excited to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“My peers selected me. That’s always such a compliment, when your peers say you’re good enough to join our club. That kind of says it all,” Lane said.

Her advice for women making advancements in engineering and other fields is not to attempt to break barriers, but go after something they enjoy doing because that’s where they’ll excel, she said.

Lane