Charter member, Margaret Cooper (née Margaret Gilbert Perry) was instrumental in the early days of the Ninety-Nines. She entered the first All Women’s Transcontinental Air Race out of Santa Monica in 1929, though she was forced to withdraw because of a Typhoid Fever attack and a temperature of 104. In 1930, she moved to California and bought the Culver City Airport, making her the first woman to own and operate a commercial air field. She married Larry Cooper, a movie stunt pilot and employee of Texaco Oil.

For the Ninety-Nines, she formed the Southwest Section and in 1932 founded the two California Chapters – Bay Cities and Los Angeles. She soon left her duties as LA Chapter Chairman to become the Southwest Section Governor, and then succeeded her friend, Amelia Earhart, as the second President of the Ninety-Nines, serving from 1933-1935. In 1936, she moved to New York as the New York-New Jersey Section Governor. When Amelia died in 1937, she and Alma Harwood formed the Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarship Fund, which still awards scholarships to female pilots today. She was a permanent trustee of the scholarship until her death on November 3, 1951. She was survived by her husband, Harold M. Manser.

99s News Magazine Article (1951)