0
PhreeZone

Condolence thread for Danny Page and Bob Holler

Recommended Posts

B.O.B you will be missed and I always looked forward to jumping with you at Deland. I last jumped with B.O.B. in November and we were doing 23 ways out of the otter just prior to the Kaleidescope dives. Prior to every dive, he talked about safety and during our dirt dives he emphasized safety again. I rembember how special I felt when he invited me to do these dives. After each dive I was smiling from ear to ear. B.O.B. also made my wife feel so very welcome at Deland. My wife and I talked about Bob last night and we are both so saddened by this unnecessary death.

Our prayers and condolences are also with Danny and his friends and family as well.

BSBD
Think of how stupid the average person is and realize that statistically half of them are stupider than that.



Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I am still in shock that Danny is gone. I was there when it happened, and the feel of the drop zone was very depressing. I saw him earlier that day and my boyfriend talked to him as well. Whenever Danny saw my boyfriend, he would always say, "Where's the wife?" I have not been skydiving in Georgia long, but to know Danny is to love Danny. He will be sorely missed.

I attached a picture of him dressed up as Buzz Lightyear at the Halloween Boogie in Thomaston. Blue Skies Danny!
http://3ringnecklace.com/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I flew camera for an AFF level 1 that Danny & Mandy were JMs on 2 weeks ago. The student totally hosed us all on the exit and we all ended up in the same place at the same time. I got off of them with no damage... Danny and Mandy get the student back on her belly. Danny reaches across the student's back, high-5's Mandy, turns and points at me giving me props for doing my part to make it work, then starts the skydive. All of this while still on the hill! When we completed the TLO's and I move in for face time, the stills show Danny grinning bigger than the student! We watched this video the night of the incident and that is how I will always remember Danny.
Blue 111-
Jeff

"When I die, I want to go like my grandmother, who died peacefully in her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I attached a picture of him dressed up as Buzz Lightyear at the Halloween Boogie in Thomaston. Blue Skies Danny!



That is the picture I was going to post tonight when I got home.

I am honored to have known both Men.

no more "you have tickets for the gun show?" from Danny.[:/]

I was looking forward to giving Bob freefly training after spending a weekend with him helping Brie.
[:/]


Brie and I will be at both funerals.
my power is beyond your understanding.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I've attached a pic of Danny from Friday...he was working while the winds were honking and I asked him to pout for the camera since he was working instead of jumping. He said he wasn't photogenic, and didn't understand why people want to take pics of him, and flashed his grin anyway.

The 2nd pic is all the people who went on the memorial jump on Sunday at Dublin. The jump was beautiful, we completed the 1st point on the 17 way, and didn't quite make the 2nd planned point, a BFR. There were 2 slots where the round was broken. When we got down, Carl said it was for the missing men...

Enemiga Rodriguez, PMS #369, OrFun #25, Team Dirty Sanchez #116, Pelt Head #29, Muff #4091

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote


I attached a picture of him dressed up as Buzz Lightyear at the Halloween Boogie in Thomaston.



That's Danny and Joe Bennett for you that may not know Joe's face.



I have many Danny stories, but here is one that sticks out in my memories of him.

In the middle of summer,1992, we were training yet again in Raeford for the Carolina Council.

I was front float on the right door Twin-bo and Danny was the center.

The launch was Cat-360-Cat which also was the jump before and had problems.
Danny and I had a "spirited" aurgument over how the launch should be done between the last jump and this one.

Joe Trinko and the rest of the Gloden Knight 4-way team were in the front of the airplane. They usually rode up there just to screw with us on the exits..

Well, I climb out first with my back against the fuselage. Danny is behind me taking grips and all of a sudden. The GK are banging away on the inside of the fuselage and windows.

I'm thinking they are screwing with us again...The count...we exit... the chunk lauches perfectly.... the next thing I know is my flipping canopy is deploying...I look back and down at the now 3-way and Danny is smiling ,like double his normal grin..

I thinking Danny dumped me out just being Danny and the previous argument. I'm Thinking "whoop ass" now as I spiral down from 10,000 feet mad as hell.

What I did not know was when I was climbing out , my main pin had popped out. My bag was trapped between me and the fuselage and window( hence all the beating from the GK's inside the airplane not wanting to die), When the piece launched, I had an immediate Horseshoe. Danny sees it and dumps me out right off of the airplane.

When I land, my team all greets me telling me what exactly happened.

Danny comes up to me last and says" are you going to kiss me now or later for saving your ass" with the biggest grin I have ever seen him do in my 18 years of knowing him.

"......and that's beer!" with the Danny trademark laugh.


He never let me forget that one!

I am in Cali right now but will be at the memorial on Sunday.
I look forward to meeting all of his friends I did not ever get to meet.


To Bob's Family, my condolences with the deepest regards! I did not know him, but most did, and are proud to have known him.


MEL
Skyworks Parachute Service, LLC
www.Skyworksparachuteservice.com

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I didnt know if this is the right way to post my thoughts but i guess it will work.
the first time i actually remember danny was the time back in '03 i was going on one of my aff levels.
nervous and sacred to death i was going over my dive in my head when i looked over and there was a guy studying a LAW BOOK! @ 10,000' here i was, cant remember crap and this guy, later to find out it was danny page, is studying law. it gave me a great sense of calmness. for that i thank you danny! i met my wife that same era and took some time off. well my wife and i got back into the sport. we sold danny our 50" sony lcd T.V. and found a rig for heather. he knew i didnt have a rig so the very next week-end here comes danny calling me too his truck."here man, heres a complete rig minus a reserve" just gave it to me!!! it is an old racer w/ a swift 170. i still have it too. i tried to give him some $ for it but all he wanted was for me to give it to someone such as myself when i got some newer equipment. this is who he was. i dont believe he wanted anyone w/ the passion to sit around wishing they were in the air. i'll have a hard time giving this rig up one day but i will pass his passion along to some young jumper just as he did for me. p.s. no more fighting over who gets to sleep in mandy and daves camper now! ha-ha love ya man todd and heather

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Lee (skinnyshrek) asked me to resize these photos and post them on his behalf (Lee is the photographer for all of these). The first four photos are shots of Bob's jumps, I believe all at DeLand, and the last two are of Bob's final jump at Dublin. Bob is in the black suit with blue grippers with black/blue rig.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
This article was in today's Courier Herald (www.courier-herald.com) on Danny and Bob. There was so much more that could have been said, that should have been said but I just lost it when Jason cornered me yesterday...sorry

At least now locals will realize they were not just out of town guests but friends, heros

They were more than skydivers


03/20/07
by Jason Halcombe
Respond to this story
Email this story to a friend

The clouds were rolling in.

Sheets of wispy high stratus clouds were starting to clump at lower altitudes and were turning a light shade of gray under the early afternoon sun.

It made for an awful glare anytime you threw your eyes skyward, but with another load preparing to take flight on Otter Load No. 3, there was a little less than a half hour break before onlookers broke their necks once again to watch the sight.

“There’s no feeling like it in the world,” said Dublin resident and skydiver Lisa Bell Thursday at Bud Barron airport.

I told Lisa how my father had done his share of skydiving about 25 years ago, and how his dad told him “Only two things fall from the sky: Bird (you know what) and fools.”

Bell just laughed, skipped over to another friend for a hug and a peck on the cheek, and started to make her way toward the rest of the POPS crew. Skydivers are a rare breed: a mix of daredevil, little kid and best friend all wrapped into one.

POPS stands for Parachutists Over Phorty Society.

It was hard to believe half the POPS group were in their mid-30s, let alone mid-40s, with jokes and barbs being tossed back and forth over a Stevie Ray Vaughn song as the team assembled for a dirt dive (A practice run where they assemble in formation and go over strategy before they took to the air).

As the dirt dive continued, the last two or three folks boarded Otter No. 3 and off the plane lumbered down the runway, taxiing before hitting the throttle to jettison the thrill-seekers 13,000 feet or-so above Laurens County.

The POPS crew was full of personalities, and unfortunately Saturday a pair of those personalities became memories following a horrific accident above the grassy infield at Bud Barron airport.

To most they were just a pair of names with out of town addresses.

Robert “Bob” Holler, 50, of Deland, Fla.

Danny Page, 44, of Atlanta.

But to those close to Bob and Danny, they were skydiving buddies and more importantly, friends.

“I’m honored to say I was friends with them even for as short a time as I knew them,” said Bell, who herself has logged more than 900 jumps during her time as a skydiver.

All the jumping gave her plenty of time to get to know both Danny and Bob.

Both men spent time in the military, before Page went on to become a lawyer and Holler settled down at the Drop Zone in Deland.

Page was by all accounts “your typical lawyer,” who knew that “if it was right it was right, and if it was wrong it was wrong. He had no problem telling you.”

But Page was also a jokester who was always smiling.

“Even on that last jump,” Bell said, “we were across from each other on the formation, and when I dodged and looked under the formation I could see Danny smiling. He was just always smiling.”

Page was Bell’s ASF instructor, helping Bell learn to solo skydive. And he was also taking part in the POPS record attempt, even if we was a little “fashionably late” getting there for the practice.

“He came in for the POPS record right on time, five minutes late. That’s just Danny. He had to make a scene. You always knew when Danny was there. ‘Okay, I’m not really old enough to join you old farts, but here I am. And now ya’ll can start. Oh, and that’s my spot: move.’

“He just had this presence.”

Holler was a much more subdued personality, who according to Bell was somebody who “could always seem to make it work.”

“His ability to explain stuff so you could understand it was just amazing,” Bell said. “He could put it on your level no matter where you were.”

Although Holler loved skydiving enough to live at the Drop Zone—and held world records in the sport—it wasn’t his entire life. Retired from the Air Force, Holler had recently returned from a volunteer mission in search of MIAs.

“Planes that had sunk and bodies that hadn’t been returned,” Bell said. “He was talking about Saturday during our down time. To my understanding, it was something he had to pay for to be part of this mission. He would give you the shirt off his back, but that’s how skydivers are.”

More people should be like skydivers. More people should be like Danny Page and Bob Holler.

--
Hot Mama
At least you know where you stand even if it is in a pile of shit.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

the last two are of Bob's final jump at Dublin.


That was jump before the final one.



I'm just posting what I was told by Lee.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Danny was definitely a character, a wise ass that everyone was attracted to. He could always make people laugh, and always had a huge smile on his face that you couldn't help but smile back.
My last interaction with Danny was about 3 hours before his last jump. I was packing in the skydive Atlanta tent when I bent over to pick something up and SMACK! right on my ass...Danny slapped me. At this point I have not seen Danny in 3 months but I knew that was his 'hello'. I turned around and jumped into his arms where I received a big bear hug (which he was always great at giving). He said, "I had to come find you,..I haven't seen you in a while". I told him I missed him and that it was great to see him. Danny always put me in a good mood.
He was a very caring person, loved to help people out and share his knowledge.
Danny, I'll miss you at the DZ , it just won't be the same. LOVE YOU :(

I knew of Bob, but never got to meet him. Deepest sympathies go out to both families and all the lives they have touched.

~Melanie

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
i am not really sure when i first met bob, it was one of the times we were in deland. we ended up making quite a few jumps together, although a large number were "working" jumps. one of the most memorable was in myrtle beach for senor frog's, vladi had us all wearing frog costumes in the 100 degree heat, but we all had a great time!
blue skies,

art

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I am so sorry for you loss. I want you to know that I was there and saw the accident. Many people ran to do all that they could for both Danny and Bob. I did not know Bob but I did know Danny. As a matter of fact Danny reviewed the landing pattern with me at the ariel photo of the airport just that afternoon because I am a low time jumper. They will both be sorely missed. I have a photo that I took in the hanger of the dirt dive for the POPS jump that they were on. The file is too big to attach here. Please email me at [email protected] and I will email it directly to you if you would like to have it.

Kathleen

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0