Paul Redfern standing beside his home- built airplane with his wife Gertrude seated inside. July 4, 1923, marked the first night flight over Columbia. Few onlookers were on hand when aviation prodigy Paul Redfern took off from an airstrip at the State Fairgrounds about 10:30 pm. With two oil lanterns tied to the back of his Packard Roadster, his father, a Benedict College administrator, illuminated various roadways over which his adventurous son flew.

From aloft, the young Redfern dropped lighted firecrackers and promotional pamphlets. To guide the pioneering pilot in, his mechanic Daniel Berkman built a bonfire next to the landing strip, wrote Dr. Miles Richards

in his Remembering

Columbia.

By the time the 21- year - old landed, noise from the firecrackers and the plane in the night sky had razed a cavalcade of motorists who followed along behind the Packard.

Five years later in an aerial bid for fame and fortune, Redfern took off solo from Brunswick, Ga. for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but his green and gold Stinson Detroiter Port of Brunswick vanished as it crossed the Venezuelan or Guyana wilderness.

On August 25 the Columbia- based international Paul Rinaldo Redfern Society will commemorate the historic take- off of the first aviator to solo the Caribbean Sea. For more information pull down Links, then Redfern, at www.eaa242.org.