Editing Joe Foss (section)

==Early years==
Foss was born in an unelectrified farmhouse near [[Sioux Falls, South Dakota]], the oldest son of Mary Esther (née Lacey) and Frank Ole Foss. He was of Norwegian and Scottish descent.<ref>{{cite news |title=Joe Foss Obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1417707/Joe-Foss.html |work=The Telegraph |date=January 3, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110114234741/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1417707/Joe-Foss.html |archive-date=January 14, 2011 |language=en-gb}}</ref> At age 12, he visited an airfield in [[Renner, South Dakota|Renner]] to see [[Charles Lindbergh]] on tour with his aircraft, the [[Spirit of St. Louis]]. Four years later, he and his father paid $1.50 apiece to take their first aircraft ride in a [[Ford Trimotor]] at [[Black Hills Airport]] with a famed South Dakota aviator, [[Black Hills Airport|Clyde Ice]].<ref name="SDPB"/>

In March 1933, while coming back from the fields during a storm, his father was killed when he drove over a downed electrical cable and was electrocuted as he stepped out of his automobile.<ref>Bauer January 1990, p. 20.</ref> Young Foss, not yet 18 years old, pitched in with his mother and brother Cliff to continue running the family farm.<ref name="Sims p. 32"/> Farming was made difficult by dust storms, which over the next two years took its toll on crops and livestock.{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}

After watching a Marine Corps aerial team, led by Capt. Clayton Jerome, perform aerobatics in open-cockpit biplanes, he was determined to become a Marine aviator.<ref name="Legend"/> Foss worked at a service station to pay for books and college tuition, and to begin flight lessons from Roy Lanning, at the Sioux Skyway Airfield in 1938, scraping up $65 to pay for the instruction. His younger brother took over the management of the farm and allowed Foss to go back to school and graduate from [[Washington High School (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)|Washington High School]] in Sioux Falls. He graduated from the [[University of South Dakota]] in 1939 with a degree in business administration.<ref>{{cite news |title=WWII ace Joe Foss dies at 87: Medal of Honor recipient led a storied life |work=The Arizona Republic |date=January 2, 2003}}</ref>

While at USD, Foss and other like-minded students convinced authorities to set up a [[Civil Aeronautics Board|CAA]] flying course at the university; he built up 100 flight hours by graduation.<ref name="Sims p. 32"/> Foss paid his way through university by "bussing" tables. He joined the Sigma chapter of the [[Sigma Alpha Epsilon]] fraternity and excelled at sports in USD, fighting on the college boxing team, participating as a member of the track team and as a second-string guard on the football team.<ref name="Sims p. 32"/><ref>[http://www.nicindy.org/whos_greek/medal_of_honor_recipients "Medal of Honor recipients"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090708150005/http://www.nicindy.org/whos_greek/medal_of_honor_recipients/ |date=2009-07-08 }}, nicindy.org; accessed August 3, 2011.</ref>

Foss served as a Private in the [[147th Field Artillery Regiment]], Sioux Falls, South Dakota National Guard from 1939 to 1940. By 1940, armed with a pilot certificate and a college degree, Foss hitchhiked to Minneapolis to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserves, in order to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program to become a [[United States Naval Aviator|Naval Aviator]].<ref name="Sims p. 32">Sims 1969, p. 32.</ref>