Roxie Laybourne: Feather Detective
Imagine having a job where you can create a new science, save lives, and solve murders. That’s what Roxie Laybourne achieved as a feather detective. She spent fifty-eight years at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History solving bird mysteries.
Born in 1910, Roxie Laybourne spent her childhood wandering through the fields and woods of Farmville, North Carolina.
She followed anything that crawled or flew. Seeing a bird, she’d note the size and color and then ask her grandmother to identify it.
When she was ten years old, her friends wanted to be nurses or teachers. Not Roxie. She wanted to be a turkey vulture. Lying in the grass, she’d watch the vultures soar above the trees and imagine herself riding the thermals. Soon she was flying kites and building model airplanes that swooped through the air.
After high school, Roxie attended Meredith College in North Carolina, where she studied science and math. She was a serious student, but showed her independence by being the first girl on campus to wear blue jeans. She also mowed the grass and
