About Betty

From a young age, I spent summers on Cape Cod, following in the footsteps of my grandmother and mother.  My mother always said that her mother tossed her in the ocean at a beach in Hyannis Port shortly after her birth in June 1924 and she started swimming then and there.  

 

Today, I’m a full-time resident, living in the house my parents bought in the 1960s.  I am a mom to four children, all, students in the Barnstable Public School system.  My son is a Town of Barnstable lifeguard. We have a dog in the house that we picked up at a shelter in Dallas, Texas.  If you’re wondering why we would go to Dallas to get a dog, we didn’t.

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I was in Dallas completing a training program with my employer, American Airlines, which is based in Dallas.  I brought my four kids with me since it was during the time of COVID and they were in remote school anyway.  The kids and I would visit various parks and playgrounds around Dallas and this one park was right beside an animal shelter.  I thought it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look at the animals in the shelter.  Well, you know the rest of the story.  I came back to Cape Cod with a brand new Federal Aviation Administration Type Rating to pilot Boeing-787 aircraft and a not so brand new five-year-old German Shepherd that the shelter had taken in as a stray and named, James. 

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I spent 30 years serving in the Air Force. I was stationed all over the place, from the high desert of California where I watched the space shuttle land in the early days of that NASA program, to the island of Teceria in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to the storied halls of the Pentagon in Virginia, enjoying quiet time in the Pentagon library when I could and glad I wasn’t in the library on 9/11 when a hijacked American Airlines plane crashed into the Pentagon right where the library was.  

 

And finally, to Uzbekistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom where I got to meet Uzbek Air Force members who had been on the side of the Soviet Union the last time Afghanistan had been invaded.  Oh, and I can’t forget heading to Miami after Hurricane Andrew to help in recovery operations.  There I am in the picture with some of the guys at our tent city.  My work as an international airline pilot has taken me from places as far flung as Rio De Janeiro to Dubrovnik to Edinburgh and back countless times over and over.

 

With all these travels and adventures, my favorite place to be is still Cape Cod.  Every time I fly home from a trip to Europe I love it when I see Cape Cod come into view.  It is such a unique and precious piece of land.  That is why I am serving as and want to continue to serve as your Barnstable Town Councilor.  I want to protect and preserve what makes us special while welcoming the change we need to keep us a vibrant, thriving community.  It is a constant balancing act and I rely on the residents of the Town to keep me on target.  I represent you and “I love public comment!” So please don't be shy. Contact me.