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Lake Oswego resident Winnie Omodt holds up her graduation certificate as a Pan Am stewardess, taken in 1970. The following year, she said, she had an unpleasant run-in with Donald Trump in the First Class cabin. (Dana Tims/Staff)

(Dana Tims)

Winnie Omodt says her first and only encounter with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took place on an airplane runway in New York 45 years ago. But her memories of the meeting, she says, remain as fresh as yesterday.

Today, Omodt lives in Lake Oswego, where she's retired. But on that day, in 1971, she was into her second year as a Pan Am flight attendant, preparing for takeoff to London by collecting entree orders from 60 or so passengers in first class.

Passenger after passenger requested the plane's limited supply of prime rib. Except for one business traveler, who didn't even look up when Omodt asked what he wanted, she recalled Tuesday in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

When she stopped by again, after everyone else had ordered, the man finally looked up. He wanted the prime rib, too.

"I said, 'I'm sorry sir, it's all been ordered,'" Omodt replied.

"Do you know who I am?" she said he demanded. "I could buy every seat up here."

"But you didn't," Omodt said. "And it's now all gone."

The passenger, as it turned out, was Donald Trump, then 25.

Omodt, a registered Democrat who said she's voting for Hillary Clinton, said she has amused friends and associates over the years with the story. With the presidential contest now in full swing, some urged her to share it publicly.

Omodt learned who the passenger was about two weeks after the encounter. She was summoned by her bosses to respond to "a very angry complaint letter" claiming Omodt hadn't treated Trump "like a first class passenger."

"Our supervisors never assumed that passenger complaints were well-founded," she said. "And, in this case, after hearing my side, they said, thank you for doing the right thing."

The Trump campaign did not return emails seeking the candidate's response to Omodt's account.

As a last-gasp effort to get the prime rib, Omodt said, Trump asked her to tell some other passenger in the cabin that she had miscounted the orders.

That way, Trump told her, he could still get his preferred order.

-- Dana Tims

503-294-7647; @DanaTims