Flying home

After a near 17 year hiatus away from soaring over thousands of acres of farm land in Evangeline Parish, Ville Platte native Jonathan Young has landed back at home to continue the career he was destined for as a crop duster pilot.
The career path was one that Young tried to run from after he closed his father’s crop dusting business, Young Flyers, back in 2002. However, when the opportunity was presented in 2012 to allow Young to get back into the cockpit of a plane in Kaplan, he couldn’t say no, although he had tried to steer clear of the dangerous occupation that claimed his father Aaron Young’s life in July of 2000.
His first experience flying is one he can only be reminded of in photos, since he was a mere 13 months old the first time he soared through the air with his dad.
“I don’t remember my first plane ride,” said Young. “But I do remember that as a child my dad would stack books on the seats so that I could see to steer the plane.”
However, by the time he was 16, he didn’t need books to see the landscape before him and he for the first time soloed, or flew by himself.
He started learning the tricks of this trade early in life, but being a crop duster pilot was not the career he intended on pursuing.
The 1992 Sacred Heart graduate said, “Growing up, I was going to either be a doctor or a nurse. I was thinking I would be in the medical field.”
Young continued, “My father was always discouraging me from getting into flying because of the danger and the headache.”
“There is a lot of stress built into this job, but my dad was still supportive when I started going in that direction. He just didn’t want to push me into it. Once he knew I had a love for it, my dad welcomed me into it.”
Upon graduating high school, Young headed to Louisiana State University at Eunice and then Northeastern Louisiana University - today known as the University of Louisiana at Monroe - where he worked toward becoming a nurse. But in 1996 Young said he started to miss home and moved back to Ville Platte.
He made plans to work with his dad, however he said, “My dad said I couldn’t work in his operation unless I had a degree, so I transferred to USL (University of Southwestern Louisiana), and earned a degree in Agribusiness in 1998.”
Young then began working for his dad at Young Flyers, which was located on Young Flyers Lane in Ville Platte.
Two years into the job, tragedy struck and placed Young in a position where he became the main man in charge of a business his dad started in 1969.
“I was doing contract work in Texas when I got the call about the crop dusting accident from a close family friend and farmer we worked with, Don Morein,” said Young. “So I came back home and began running my dad’s business. Out of respect for him, I felt like I had to run the business just like he did. I felt handcuffed, so I decided to close the business in August of 2002.”
Young then changed the course of his career and made the decision to pursue a new but somewhat familiar trade.
In 2002, he packed up his wife Mollean and two children, Alyse and Aaron, and headed to Monroe to pursue a career in pharmacy. Young knew a little about the field due to the fact that his wife was a pharmacist herself.
After graduating with a pharmacy degree in 2007, he and his family moved back home and he began his new career. But his desire to fly high never went away.
Young said, “Between 2007 and 2009 I was living in Ville Platte doing pharmacy, but about that same time I was getting the itch to get back into flying. I ignored it though. I would see planes flying, and I missed it, but I just continued to ignore it.”
By 2009, Young and his family were ready for new scenery, and so packed everything they owned and moved to Colorado before returning to their home state in 2011 and making their home in Youngsville.
It was around that time that his calling to be a crop duster hovered back into his life.
“When we moved back, I did pharmacy for about a year in Youngsville,” said Young. “Then a local flying service had an opening because someone was in a horrible crash and they were looking for a pilot. So I went to work as a crop duster pilot in Kaplan. That’s where I stayed until November of 2018.”
After parting ways with the company in Kaplan, Young received a call from Jerry Laneaux who was looking for a pilot for Central Farmers Flying Service in Vidrine.
The offer to come work back at home and do exactly what he loves to do at the very place where his dad started flying was too tempting to turn down, and Young officially joined the Central team in January of this year.
Laneaux said, “We were glad he wanted to come back, and are proud to welcome him back home.”
The call from Laneaux was one, Young said excited him. “It was exciting to have the opportunity to come back here,” said Young. “And, I was humbled by the thought they would even have me back.”
Because this operation is located at the same place where his father’s journey as a crop duster began, Young said, “It feels like everything has just come full circle and this is where I am supposed to be.”
On a busy day, Young could be in the air from day break until sundown dropping seeds, fertilizer, or pesticides on fields he flew over as a young boy with his dad. One of the most interesting things, he said, is the fact that he gets to work for farmers that he flew for back when he worked with his father.
He said, “I was somewhat afraid that these farmers would feel like I abandoned them, but instead they have been so welcoming since I have come back to Evangeline Parish.”
Young continued, “I am just very happy to be back home doing what I love. My whole family still lives here, including my mom Jean Young and my sister Michele LaHaye, so it’s wonderful to be back with all of my family and friends.”