Today in motorcycle history, February 27, 1977

  Janet "The Flying Angel" Lee jumps over 34 motorcycles in Anthony, New Mexico, on February 27, 1977. 

 

  A native of Midland, Texas, Janet Lee started her stunt career in Texas after watching the "Deathriders" perform in the summer of 1973.  It was at their third show that she was hired by stuntman Billy Ward after he heard her volunteer to get in the box with Danny Reed, aka "Mr. TNT", to be blown up.  The first show she appeared in was June 22, 1973 doing precision driving.  Over the next few months she would be crashing cars, driving though dynamite, being a human battering ram, crashing through ice and even having a head-on crash with another female driver.

  The Flying Angel’s high-flying career crashed to the earth on June 25, 1977 during the ’77 Fiesta del Concho.  As the featured performer in the summer celebration, she tried to jump a motorcycle over the North Concho River (her third attempt in 2 years) in downtown San Angelo.

  She didn’t make it.

  The crash broke her elbow in three places (ouch), split her lip and gave Janet a concussion that knocked her silly.

  The crash, her second in 35 days, persuaded Janet to give up stunt riding.  It also persuaded Fiesta officials to quit paying riders to try to jump the Concho River.

  Then the 23 year-old Janet Lee decided to find a new career, she became a professional flagpole painter.

  “I painted flagpoles, radio towers, water towers in the southern and western parts of the country until 1994,” she told the San Angelo Standard-Times in 2007.

  Her tallest flagpole, you ask? A 95-footer in Safford, Ariz.

  From ’94 to ’98, she found a more down-to-earth career as a karate instructor in Fredericksburg, Texas.

  “I won’t say I’m brave,” said Janet, who now lives south of Los Angeles. “I just love to do something different.”

  Her latest adventures include annual trips to China and Tibet.