Lt. Maynard, 'Flying Parson' With North Carolina Ties, Winning Army Air Race, 1919

From the Oct. 16, 1919, issue of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch

Lt. Belvin W. Maynard, the ‘flying parson’, won the first coast to coast leg of the army air race last Saturday. The total elapsed time from Mineola Field, New York, to San Francisco, for the 2,701 miles, was 75 hours and 47 minutes, and his flying time was 24 hours and 58 minutes.

He rested in San Francisco 3 days and started back on the return flight Tuesday.

Maynard is studying for the Baptist ministry at Wake Forest College, leaving there 18 months ago to join the air service in France. He is married, has two children, and is 27 years old. He is a nephew of Mrs. A.M. Flowers of Rockingham, and was born in Anson county where his father practiced medicine for 13 years until 1903, when the family moved to Sampson county.