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Flat Stanley shares Air Force adventures with Wisconsin schoolchildren

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jennifer Lindsey
  • Air Force Recruiting Service
RANDOLPH AFB, Texas --  Making the best of a tragedy, albeit a fictional one, Flat Stanley is one paper doll who gets around, even 'doing something amazing" with the Air Force recently.

Thanks to the travels of their Flat Stanley, students from Rachelle Russell's second-grade class at Brookfield Elementary School in Wisconsin gained an inside look at life in the Air Force.

Stanley's Air Force adventure began when Brig. Gen. Suzanne Vautrinot, Air Force Recruiting Service commander, and her husband, Bill Keller, received a letter in February from their niece, Nikki, containing a Flat Stanley. As part of her class' Flat Stanley Project, Nikki asked her aunt and uncle to take the paper doll on trips with them through the spring and share information about Stanley's high-speed, high-flying adventures with her in a letter.

Nikki's Flat Stanley started out by accompanying the general and her husband on a trip from San Antonio to Phoenix aboard a C-17 cargo aircraft, then attending an Air Force commander's conference at Luke AFB. The couple then brought Stanley with them to a Snocross snowmobile racing championship at Lake Geneva, Wisc. Stanley's Air Force adventure also included a flight over San Antonio in a T-38 supersonic jet at Randolph AFB.

Dale Hubert, a Canadian elementary school teacher, started the Flat Stanley Project in 1995 to inspire his students to learn how to write and read correspondence. Mr. Hubert's idea was inspired by Jeff Brown's 1964 children's book, "Flat Stanley." In the story, Stanley Lambchop is flattened when a bulletin board falls on him. He survives, but in an altered state, which allows him to mail himself in letters to his friends for unique, worldwide adventures.

During the past 13 years, students from more than 6,000 classes in 47 countries have participated in the Flat Stanley Project by mailing their own paper dolls to friends and family or to students in other schools taking part in the project.

In addition to Ms. Russell teaching her students how to write letters and address envelopes through her class' Flat Stanley Project, she introduced her second-graders to basic geography.

"One of our standards is for children to know the difference between a city, state, country and continent," she said. "These Flat Stanly Letters go out all around the world and are sent back. As we receive them, we identify the places on a map and globe."

Everywhere the general and Mr. Keller introduced Nikki's Flat Stanley, he was given an enthusiastic welcome, they said. Attendees of the Luke AFB conference even contributed to the project by awarding the doll a customized Airman Battle Uniform and flight suit. Spectators at the snowmobile race made it a point to shout his name when they saw Stanley from the stands.

The general returned Flat Stanley to Nikki in late April. 

Of all the photos of her doll's Air Force experiences, Nikki said her favorite photograph of Flat Stanley is of him seated in the C-17 Globemaster III wearing his new flight suit.

"Everyone knows Flat Stanley; he's something people in the Air Force and civilians understand and love," General Vautrinot said. "Flat Stanley goes on all sorts of adventures around the world and this time he's seen the world of the Air Force and what we do."