Young Eagles Raffle Winner Claims Mustang

August 8, 2017 - Every year that Beth Lewis and her husband, Ed, have attended EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, they’ve made sure to do one thing — purchase a ticket for the Young Eagles Raffle.

“It’s great if you win, but we want to support the Young Eagles,” Beth said. “That’s our goal. It’s a great cause.”

Ed, a flight instructor at Poplar Grove Airport in Poplar Grove, Illinois, has been coming to AirVenture since the late 1980s, while Beth has attended the fly-in around 10 times. Up until this year, neither Beth nor Ed’s name had ever been drawn as a Young Eagles Raffle winner.

That changed on the closing day of AirVenture 2017.

Beth’s name was chosen as the grand prize winner of a 2017 Ford Mustang GT convertible, which she and Ed claimed on Tuesday morning.

Beth and Ed had already departed Oshkosh by the time of the Young Eagles Raffle drawing on the Sunday afternoon of AirVenture, so Beth – whose name was on the winning ticket – didn’t find out about her new Mustang until the next day.

Safe to say, she was pretty excited when she received the call from EAA.

“They called Ed and he called me at work and said ‘Don’t get too excited. EAA called and they said they need to talk to you, they couldn’t tell me what it was,’” Beth explained. “I said to him ‘Alright, now it could be something, but who knows? It could be another raffle we entered or free tickets.’ So I said to myself that I wouldn’t get too excited. When I called and they told me [I won the Mustang], I was shocked. I said ‘Are you kidding?’ And she said no. I was so excited, I’d never won anything.”

In addition, Beth also won the choice of a flight with aerobatic pilot and Young Eagles Chairman Sean D. Tucker or lunch with Miracle on the Hudson First Officer and former Young Eagles Chairman Jeff Skiles during AirVenture 2018.

Beth said she’s chosen a ride with Sean, but Ed will be taking it.

“I’ve been following his career for years,” Ed said of Sean. “I met him at the Rockford airport back in the early ’90s and I got to shake his hand. He’s a class act and I always wanted to get in a plane with him and spend a little time with him.”

Even though a week has passed since learning of her good fortune, Beth was still a bit shocked that her name was chosen for the Mustang, even with the car at her side on Tuesday.

“I’m maybe still in a little bit of shock,” Beth said. “My son when I called him said ‘Oh, you’re fooling with me.’ I said ‘No really, I’m not!’ We’re thrilled, excited, and now it’s finally starting to sink in. We feel honored to have won it.”