It began with a piece of music and with a young woman searching for strength during a difficult time in her life.

During her early high school years, Michelle experienced a major change in her family that deeply affected her. The emotional weight of that period reached into her school life and her confidence, leaving her searching for a way to move forward.

She found inspiration in the story of Amelia Earhart.

To Michelle, Amelia represented more than aviation history. Her courage to venture into the unknown, challenge expectations, and keep moving toward the horizon became a source of strength. Michelle began to understand that exploration is not only about discovering new places it can also be about discovering who we are and finding the courage to move forward when life changes unexpectedly.

Michelle chose music as her way of expressing that experience. Together with her father, she created Where Are You, Amelia? an original musical work inspired by Amelia’s life and spirit.

What began as a deeply personal artistic expression soon traveled far beyond her own story.

Where Are You, Amelia? was accepted into the permanent collection of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. In 2025, it was selected as the opening music for the international conference of The Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots that Amelia Earhart once served as its first president.

Michelle’s work and her efforts to carry Amelia’s spirit forward also received recognition at the local, state, and federal levels, including the Mayor’s Spotlight Award from the City of Huntington Beach, recognition from the California State Senate, and recognition from a Member of the United States House of Representatives.

For Michelle, that recognition meant more than achievement. It helped restore her confidence and showed her that something created during a difficult chapter of life could become something meaningful to others. As she regained her sense of direction, she also grew stronger academically and personally.

Another important chapter in Michelle’s journey began through Jan McKenzie, Chair of the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum Trust and a former International President of The Ninety-Nines.

Through Jan’s encouragement, mentorship, and continued guidance, Michelle’s connection to Amelia began to move beyond music and history and into aviation itself. At Jan’s invitation, Michelle visited Amelia’s birthplace and museum in Atchison, Kansas.

Inspired by Jan and the aviation community she represents, Michelle later began learning to fly not simply to earn a pilot certificate, but to experience for herself the courage, discipline, freedom, and spirit of exploration that she had come to admire in Amelia.

As Michelle entered the world of flight, she also began to see aviation through her own artistic lens.

To her, an airplane can be a brush painting new paths across the sky. Clouds can become piano keys, with an airplane passing through them as if composing a new melody. The blue sky can become another ocean, where a white airplane moves like a gentle white whale through an endless blue sea.

She began to see that flight can be both exploration and art.

And she began asking a larger question:

If Amelia’s spirit could help one young woman rediscover courage and possibility, could that same spirit help others?

That question became WhaleX Arts Foundation.

WhaleX was created to support young women in aviation helping them discover the art of flight, embrace the spirit of exploration, and build a future with courage, creativity, and purpose.

For Michelle, carrying Amelia’s legacy forward does not mean simply remembering the past. It means helping a new generation of young women find the courage to rise above difficult moments, explore what lies beyond the horizon, and discover what they themselves may be capable of becoming.

Amelia inspired Michelle to explore again.
WhaleX exists to pass that spirit forward.