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40 • ­TWIN & TURBINE MARCH 2011Kalamazoo Air Zoo 6151 Portage Road Portage, MI 49002 www.airzoo.org (866) 524-7966 toll free (269) 382-6555Aero Mach Half Page 4/C AdAviation. When bad times hit GA, the warbird owners recognized the opportunity to buy the facility from the then-divorced and nearly bankrupt entrepreneur from Battle Creek, saving the building from destruction. They now had a venture in which their classic aircraft could be stored, and perhaps share their passion for these heart-stopping machines; they’d start a museum.They Were Thinking About PreservationSue married Preston “Pete” Parish and started a family. They also began collecting airplanes. A story in the Kalamazoo Gazette in September of 2009 quoted Director Bob Ellis (brother of John Ellis) as saying, “At the time they weren’t thinking about a museum, they were thinking about preservation. One day they decided, ‘We ought to be sharingthese with the public and starting a museum.’” On a challenge from a friend (allegedly at a social event– the challenge accompanied by the offer of an airplane donation), Sue DeLano Parish and husband Pete, in 1977 co-founded the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum, later to be renamed simply The Air Zoo.Pete would then donate his Grumman Bearcat to the Zoo according to the Kalamazoo Gazette. The actual donor was a perfectionist named Gunther Balz; the same Balz that in 1972 had won the Unlimited Air Race at Reno in the Roto Finish P-51. The director of the Zoo was to be Bob Ellis, brother of the manager of KalAero, and T-28 owner, John Ellis.The Air Zoo has since built a large and beautiful building that is off the field to the west yet within easy walking distance. The new Air Zoo, more than double its original size, features vintage aircraft, including the only remaining SR-71B Blackbird spy plane, flight simulators, amusement rides, Smithsonian exhibitions, character