Nevada aviation pioneer Marie McMillan dies at age 92

Aviation pioneer Marie McMillan died in Las Vegas last week. She was 92.

McMillan, who lived in Las Vegas for more than 50 years, received her private pilot license at age 44 and went on to set 328 U.S. aviation records and 328 world records, according to her family obituary.

“Just about anything having to do with aviation, she was there,” said T.D. Barnes, director of the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

McMillan was among the first inductees into the hall of fame in 2010, Barnes said Tuesday. She was the first woman and the second person to set a flight record in Mexico. The first was Charles Lindbergh.

She flew as often as she could, entering women’s air derbies around the world.

“She was a go-getter type of a person, and she was an achiever,” McMillan’s stepdaughter, Jarmilla McMillan-Arnold, said Sunday.

McMillan, who, according to Barnes, was known as one of “The Flying Grandmas,” was born Aug. 1, 1926, in Exeter, California.

She earned an associate’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and was one of the first women to work at the then-Nevada Test Site in 1957 before she attended flight school.

“I think of the term ‘a woman in full,’” UNLV history professor Michael Green said Sunday. “She was a pioneer and an important figure in her own right as an aviator.”

She married civil rights leader James McMillan in 1964. He was Nevada’s first African-American dentist and also served as head of the local NAACP chapter. He died in 1999.

“What helped bring them together was they both were into flying; they both had planes. She had a Jaguar and he had a Corvette, so they’d go out racing,” Green said.

“In their time, what they did was more unusual than usual,” he said.

McMillan worked as a flight instructor in Las Vegas for 25 years and flew mercy missions, bringing doctors, nurses and medical supplies to Mexico and to a California port that shipped supplies to South America.

“She was an inspiration, particularly to women,” Barnes said.

McMillan was a member of the Ninety-Nines, a nonprofit organization of female pilots that supports and encourages women who work in aviation.

She also worked as a spokeswoman for the Clark County Department of Aviation. At UNLV, she received bachelor’s degrees in anthropology in 1994 and gerontology in 2004.

“She was feisty,” Barnes said. “She was the big duck in the puddle.”

McMillan is survived by four children, Jeffrey McMillan, James B. McMillan III, Jarmilla McMillan-Arnold and Christopher Bramley; daughter-in-law Fay Daly; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by three children, Michelle Daly, Jack Daly and Jacqueline McMillan; brothers James and Duke Stever; and her husband.

The family will receive friends to celebrate McMillan’s life from 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Palm Southwest Mortuary, 7979 W. Warm Springs Road. Services will be held 9 a.m. Friday at the mortuary.

Contact Max Michor at mmichor@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0365. Follow @MaxMichor on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Katelyn Newberg contributed to this report.