On November 2, 1929, 26 licensed women pilots gathered in a hangar at Curtiss Field, Valley Steam, Long Island, New Your and founded the 99 Club. Clara Trenckman Studer, non-pilot, was primarily responsible for this gathering, maintaining that women flyers should form an organization. Of the 117 licensed women pilots in America contacted, only 99 responded their interest in the idea, so after much discussion, both serious and frivolous, as to the name of this newly organized group of women flyers, at Amelia Earhart's suggestion that the Club be named after the number of charter members, the name: THE 99 CLUB was adopted.

Committees were organized to set up the operating procedure and the names of the Charter Members were recorded. Thirteen of the original 99, though none attended the historic meeting, were from what was to the later called the South Central Section. See Charter members for their names.

     At the first annual national meeting held on August 22, 1930, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, it was recommended by a committee, having met in December 1929 and in February 1930, that the United States be sub-divided into Sections. The recommendation was adopted and officially the SOUTH CENTRAL SECTION came into being, to be comprised of the following states: Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Louisiana. See Meeting Sites for Internationals held in SCS and for SCS Section meetings.

     For the first year of its existence, the 99's kept in touch with each other by means of a weekly bulletin, which was put out by Curtiss-Wright and edited by Clara Treckman Studer (non-99). When the bulletin folded in the fall of 1930, the 99 Club had no official publication until after the National Meeting in 1932 when Amelia Earhart considered some sort of a 99 newsletter so important that she paid Clara's salary for a year. The '99er' became the first official monthly publication with the first issue, October 1932, till November 1934, when it expanded into the 'AIRWOMAN'. But in February 1936, the publication took on the name, the '99 NEWSLETTER' and so it remained till July 1962. With Marion Lopez's artistry and Editor Mary Lester, Oklahoma Chapter, a new format and title was adopted and the 'NINETY-NINE NEWS' came into being July 1962.