Pearl Sparks

Pearl Sparks a charter member of the Pilot Club of Florence, Alabama, authored our beautiful Code of Ethics.  At Pilot's 1950 annual convention, Pearl recalled the events leading up to the writing of Pilot's Code of Ethics:

"One day my brother and I were sitting in the living room, and I was reading aloud his Rotary code.  I was president of the Florence club at that time.  When I finished, I said the Pilot club should have something like that.  He said, Why don't you write it and we both laughed at the idea  He put the idea in my head, though, and I began to jot down things I thought should go into a code of ethics for women.  I put them down day after day on pieces of paper or whatever I had convenient, and when it same time for the international meeting in Montgomery, we were to have a stunt, as were all other clubs, which was to be our banquet program.  We were to present a solo dancer.  Just before the meeting, she sprained her ankle.  I couldn't bear for The Pilot Club of Florence not to be represented on this program, so I began to put together these scraps of paper I had put aside.  Being busy as the director of publicity at the State Teachers college, I had little time, so at the last minute I finished writing the code on the train.  When the time came to present what I had prepared, I thought it would form a nucleus of what would be the Code of Ethics.  I should have liked to polish it up a bit if I had known it was going to be adopted." -- taken from True Course Ever, A Pilot International History.

Code of Ethics

Realizing that whatever a Pilot touches should be ennobled by that touch, we, as business leaders, are resolved to make our business standards high, to do our work in every place in which we  are employed as if it were our life work, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness or making a friend; to put into our business dealings a note of sympathy for humanity; to follow truth; to do our best from dawn till night; and so to live in the discharge of our duty, so to take care of every responsibility that comes before us that we shall radiate that which is unselfish, beautiful and true; and when we shall have finished with our tasks we shall have given an upward impetus to human ideals and achievements.

            With this resolution before us then, we believe it is our duty as Pilots:

            To consider our work worthy and ourselves worthy of our work, exemplifying in it at all times the Pilot motto, “True Course Ever”.

            To work each day at that which is before us seriously, vigorously, calmly, cheerily; to improve ourselves in every possible way; to increase our efficiency; to enlarge our visions.

            To be ambitious to succeed, but always to be ethical, desiring nothing that is not achieved by justice, honesty, and fairness.

            To live in the presence of the great eternal Laws, which will keep us patient when the task is irksome and calm and unspoiled when we seem to succeed.

            To acquire self-control and self-reliance; to be ready to give as well as take; to develop in ourselves an appreciation of the finer things of life; to be honest and generous; to help, not to hinder; to be slow of criticism and quick with praise.

            To cherish our visions and our ideals; to cherish the music that stirs our hearts, the beauty that forms in our minds, knowing that on these things we can build our world, for visions and dreams are the seedlings of reality.

            To be loyal to Pilot in thought, word and deed.

            To see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, think no evil of a Pilot but to be no more loyal to a Pilot in this respect than we are to every other person, for the genius of Pilot is in its kindness, and justice is the soul and substance of life.

--By Pearl Sparks, Pilot Club of Florence, Alabama, 1926

 Amended 7/90