This day in history: Joyridding Felts Field plane thief walked into court with broken ankles from crash. North Central High School overcrowded, business group says

From 1976: Michael G. Frazier, 26, hobbled into court on crutches to plead guilty to taking a Cessna 150 on an aerial joyride.

The crutches were necessary because he had crashed the plane into some trees and ended up in a gravel pit.

He admitted that he hot-wired the plane at Felts Field and took off without notifying the control tower. He flew it – not exactly expertly – for a few miles and then got lost in the fog. He tried to land, but those pesky trees got in the way.

That was just the beginning of his adventures. He limped away from the wreckage, despite two fractured ankles, and stopped at a nearby house, where he made up a story about being in a car wreck. The occupants took him to the hospital, where he made up a new story about having been hitchhiking and beaten up by three people.

Police were already onto him, since they had been monitoring area emergency rooms for an injured pilot.

Frazier eventually confessed to this aerial joyride – and two others in Yakima and Ellensburg.

A sentence would be forthcoming.

From 1926: North Central High School had “developed into a fire and accident hazard that must be remedied,” according to the chairman of a Chamber of Commerce committee.

The main problem is that the high school – one of only two in Spokane at the time – had become dangerously overcrowded.

“There is only one way to remedy the situation – absolutely,” he said. “That is to relieve the crowded conditions.”

Spokane voters would have a chance to do something about it soon. A $690,000 school bond issued was on the March ballot. If passed it would provide two new junior high schools to take some of the pressure off the city’s two high schools.