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It didn't take long for Earhart to live up to her name. While majoring in English at the University of Colorado at Boulder, she began taking flying lessons. "My whole life I'd been getting questions about Amelia Earhart and aviation, so one day I just decided I should take flying lessons," she says. Somehow, word got out that a young Amelia Earhart was learning how to fly, and a local radio station took an interest in her story. The next thing she knew, she was being offered a job as traffic reporter on the ground. One thing led to another, a position opened up for a helicopter reporter, and it seems only natural that Earhart was the one chosen for the position.

She was just 25 years old and already had a résumé most young journalists would envy. This past May, her life took another impressive turn when she landed a job as a helicopter reporter for CBS News in Los Angeles. Now she doesn't just fly over traffic, but wildfires and crime scenes, reporting news to the second largest market in the country. She's also making history: Earhart and her pilot, Chris Kelly, are currently the only all-female helicopter news team in the world.

Eventually, Earhart hopes to not just report from a helicopter but to be licensed in flying one. She's close to completing those flight lessons she began as a young reporter in Colorado, and getting her helicopter license is the next big step. But Earhart's even greater goal is to retrace her namesake's infamous flight around the world, an idea she's been mulling over since high school. "Retracing Amelia's flight will be a huge endeavor and will take years of planning," she says. "The risks are around us all the time, but with proper planning and a safe aircraft, it would be something that I could go into with confidence."

Earhart says she'd like to complete the trip by the time she's 39—the age her aviator inspiration was when she disappeared.

Why Amelia Earhart could soon inspire women everywhere

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