Inge Harte-North Share

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Inge (Gaer­tig) Harte-North was born in Poland after her fam­i­ly was dis­placed from Roma­nia fol­low­ing World War II. They trav­eled to Ger­many then over­sees when the fam­i­ly was accept­ed with oth­er refugees to come to the U.S. The Gaer­tig fam­i­ly set­tled in the coun­try­side in Grant Coun­ty. When Inge’s father passed away, she, her five sib­lings, and her mom moved into Marion. 

Inge grad­u­at­ed from Mar­i­on High School, then took work­shops in video pro­duc­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions to teach her­self the trade. She worked for dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies but main­ly through the local cable TV provider where she ded­i­cat­ed near­ly 30 years of her life into retire­ment. Aside from her career, she became involved with pro­mot­ing oth­er orga­ni­za­tions and events hap­pen­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty. Some work was paid, and much of it was not and con­tin­ues to be vol­un­tary. She ded­i­cat­ed three years vol­un­teer­ing for the local Mus­cu­lar Dys­tro­phy Asso­ci­a­tion in the mid-1980s through a ​‘cable-thon’ and attract­ing supporters. 

While her local show, ​“Some­place Spe­cial in Grant Coun­ty,” was get­ting a lot of atten­tion, she was approached by Ray John­son, the coor­di­na­tor of the Fly/​In Cruise/​In, to help pro­mote their annu­al event show­cas­ing unique and clas­sic air and auto craft from all over the world in Mar­i­on. She accept­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help the local non­prof­it in its 2^nd year in exis­tence. To this day, Harte-North has loy­al­ly pro­mot­ed and raised aware­ness of the event through videos and much more. Through her involve­ment, they pro­vide a ​‘video mag­a­zine’ from inter­views of many air­craft and auto­mo­bile own­ers found on the Fly/​In Cruise/​In YouTube Chan­nel includ­ing archives of shows orig­i­nal­ly aired through the cable net­work. She also cre­at­ed social media for the event. Harte-North serves as Pres­i­dent of Fly/​In Cruise/​In, Inc., a 501c3 organization. 

John­son expressed that Harte-North’s ded­i­ca­tion to the event has been unmea­sur­able. ​“Since Inge took inter­est, our event has grown at incred­i­ble pace. Her video pro­duc­tion and event plan­ning lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence has been beyond mea­sure in the longevi­ty of the Fly/​In Cruise/​In.”

All efforts to make the event pos­si­ble are through vol­un­teers, and Harte-North explained that her pas­sion has always been mak­ing peo­ple shine, espe­cial­ly vol­un­teers. ​“That’s what keeps our com­mu­ni­ty going, and it’s fun. It’s a feel-good expe­ri­ence to be able to help oth­er human beings in this world.” She tout­ed the long­stand­ing event’s great num­ber of vol­un­teers, not­ing the Grant Coun­ty Res­cue Mis­sion and part­ners who have most recent­ly been coor­di­nat­ing the event’s tra­di­tion­al Pan­cake Break­fast for the past few years in order to help their orga­ni­za­tion and mis­sion while help­ing the Fly/​In Cruise/​In.