Students at Schwegler School and Kansas University collaborated Monday to publish a biography of retired flight instructor Ruth Writt.

Writt defied age and gender barriers to start flying when she was 15. Her enthusiasm for winged machines really took off at a tea social with Amelia Earhart.

“I sat on the floor with my elbow on her knee — gazing,” the Lawrence retiree told the three fourth-graders and two seniors involved in producing her story.

Life and times of Writt and 16 other elderly people were celebrated in words and pictures by teams of students from both schools. The collaborative project was designed to span three generations, with students of different ages learning from one another and elderly participants pulling the curtain back to reveal nuggets of their past.

“They love telling their life story, and they love working with the children,” said Donita Massengill, an assistant professor of education at KU who coordinates the program.

She said the project was useful because it allowed students in her KU classes to get their feet wet in a real school. At the elementary level, she said, children brush up on their interviewing, writing and editing skills.

Co-authors for Writt’s book were Marshall Spainhour, Stephanie Newton and Delano Hoswoot. Their KU editors were Maria Kepka and Rebecca Winner.

“It was really, really fun,” Newton said. “We worked really hard.”

Hoswoot added: “You would want to read it to your mom.”

Writt’s recounting of the time she flew to 17,000 feet in an experimental aircraft that didn’t have a pressurized cabin captivated the students.

Schwegler School fourth-graders and Kansas University students teamed to write the life stories of 17 elderly Lawrence residents. Schwegler student Stephanie Newton, 10, left, listens to Ruth Writt, a former flight instructor, while KU senior Maria Kepka, Hutchinson, looks on at a ceremony Monday at the school, 2201 Ousdahl Road, to present the completed books to their subjects.

“I fell asleep,” Writt said. “I woke up when we descended.”

Writt was born in 1916 in Rhode Island. She liked dodgeball, basketball and baseball. The family had a dog named Conrad.

“I didn’t like the dog, and he didn’t like me,” Writt said.

She went to Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., and then to a Katharine Gibbs secretarial school. She made a deal with her dad that if she found a job flying she could quit secretarial school. Her father didn’t give her much of a chance, but Writt proved him wrong.

She landed a job as a flight instructor in North Carolina and eventually met her future husband while teaching flying classes.

“He was one of the best students I ever had,” said Writt, who was married to the late John Writt for 58 years.

Their two children, John and Patricia, live in Lawrence.

Writt’s flying career spanned half a century, ending in 1987.

On Monday, all the biography subjects came to Schwegler to meet with the students who wrote and edited their biographies. The children read passages from the books and presented their subjects with a copy. They also shared punch and cookies.

Writt said she was struck by more than the students’ work ethic.

“I’ve been impressed with the decorum of the group,” she said. “When I was their age, we didn’t have it.”