Friday, OCTOBER 17, 2025 |

Photo – Pilot Dwight France – Courtesy Laramie Regional Airport

The Wyoming Aeronautics Commission, this week, posthumously inducted Rawlins’ pilot Dwight France into the state’s Aviation Hall of Fame.

According to a post from the Laramie Regional Airport, France logged nearly 40,000 accident-free hours over his 40-year aviation career and played a key role in developing wildlife-tracking methods still used across Wyoming.

France died in 2022, just 12 days shy of his 75th birthday.

France’s widow, Candy, spoke to Bigfoot99 about how her late husband became interested in aviation. She said Dwight and his twin brother, Sherrod, would take turns flying their father’s 1956 single-engine Cessna 180 to dental appointments in Cheyenne.

After graduating from the University of Wyoming in 1970 with a degree in business, France returned to Rawlins to work alongside his father, John, at the Rawlins National Bank.

Candy France shared a piece of family folklore that her husband John once gave his son an ultimatum: either become a banker or a pilot. France chose the skies, becoming a charter pilot.

In 1975, France started France Flying Service, a successful charter aviation company operating out of Rawlins. Six years later, he began managing the city’s FBO, or fixed-base operator, a position he held for 30 years until retiring in 2011. Candy recalled that during those years, France often tried to keep rattlesnakes from gathering on the airport runway.

France served for many years with both the Rawlins and Carbon County Fire Departments, including seventeen years as the Carbon County Fire Warden. After his retirement in 2011, France and Candy moved to Encampment, where he continued to volunteer with the Encampment/Riverside Fire Department.

That same year, 2011, the Wyoming chapter of the Wildlife Society named France Citizen of the Year, an award, recognizing individuals outside the natural conservation field, whose efforts directly support animal and habitat protection. Candy explained that France used his plane to help biologists locate collared animals.

Candy said her late husband’s induction into the Wyoming Aviation Hall of Fame came as a surprise. She only learned about it after the state Aeronautics Commission’s summer meeting and said she is grateful for the honor.

Dwight France is scheduled to be inducted into the Wyoming Aviation Hall of Fame on November 1st, in Laramie. Due to space limitations, the event will not be open to the public.

The post Rawlins Pilot to be Inducted Into State’s Aviation Hall of Fame first appeared on Bigfoot 99 Radio.