Suzanne Asbury-Oliver and Steve Oliver are celebrating 30 years of aerobatic performing and writing in the sky. Think about that for a moment. What would your friends say if you quit your job to be a skywriter or nighttime aerobatic performer?
Suzanne was the Pepsi skywriter for 23 years before Pepsi pulled out and Oregon Aero took over, while Steve is a daytime and nighttime aerobatic performer. Suzanne’s 1929 Pepsi skywriting biplane hangs in the National Air and Space Museum. The two performers are both amazed at their luck.
“It works because we have the same interests,” said Steve. “Everything clicked for us from the start. It’s like everything was meant to be.”
The couple, based in Steamboat Springs, Colo., often lives on a 55-foot ocean-going Cape Horn steel trawler.
“The fact that Steve and I can be together 24/7, that we’re a team in our personal and work lives, is amazing,” Suzanne said. “In looking back over 30 years, it’s also the friendships we’ve made while traveling and performing that have made our lives so special.”
Steve and Suzanne adopted Pax, their mascot dog, in 1997 from the Salisbury, Md., dog pound when she was eight months old. Pax is named for the first airshow the dog attended at Patuxent (Pax) River Naval Air Station in Maryland.
The couple also gives rides under the title Olivers Flying Circus using a 1928 New Standard D-25 biplane that underwent an eight-year restoration.
Alton K. Marsh
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