Dr. Edgar “Ed” Seymour, a 1931 Cheltenham High School graduate, grew up on Mill Road in Elkins Park and dreamed of becoming an engineer.

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, he frequented the newly opened Wings Field Airport in Blue Bell where he learned a recreational activity known as “soaring” in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft—called “sailboats”—which use currents of rising air to remain airborne.

Seymour attended Penn State before earning a PhD in engineering from the University of Rochester. He worked for many years as an engineer at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, during which he met physicist Dr. Arthur Tyler who encouraged Ed to try bobsledding with him.

The two friends became a bobsledding team, twice winning the North American and U.S. two-man championships in 1952 and 1953 with Seymour as the brakeman.

They went on to compete in the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy where they entered the two-man and four-man bobsledding competitions. The Americans were the favorite for the gold in the four-man, but during the two-man, their sled careened badly on the final turn, leading to Seymour being stretchered out.

They finished sixth in the two-man, but Seymour was in a cast and could not compete in the four-man.

Without Seymour, the U.S. team won a bronze.

After the Olympics, he retired from bobsledding and returned to soaring, where he broke numerous altitude records. He is still considered one of the greatest instructors in the history of the sport.

In 1995, Dr. Edgar Seymour was inducted into the National Soaring Hall of Fame in Elmira, New York. He passed on April 30, 2011, a few months shy of his 99th birthday.

Seymour was in the Mechanical Drafting Club, Engineering Club, and the Student Council at Cheltenham High.

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Photos: National Soaring Museum