WFFC 2003 -- Press Clips

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http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=13322

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Sky divers returning to Rantoul
By TIM MITCHELL
© 2003 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online February 26, 2003
RANTOUL ? Following two hours of debate, the Rantoul Village Board voted 4-2 Thursday to approve a new one-year contract to host the World Free Fall Convention at the Rantoul Airport.
This year's event is scheduled for Aug. 1-10.
Convention Organizer Don Kirlin said the Rantoul airport is ideally suited to host the convention, which is the largest sky-diving event in the world.
?The airport complex is set up as if it were designed for the Free Fall Convention,? Kirlin said. ?But the warmth of the people of Rantoul is the main reason why we're glad to come back. The sky divers felt very welcomed by the community, and I think the community enjoyed spending time with the sky divers.?
Tuesday's vote was the culmination of five months of negotiations between convention organizers and village officials.
The event moved to Rantoul last year after taking place for several years in Quincy. Officials in Blytheville, Ark., had been making a pitch to land the event this year.
?I'm happy that they are back,? said Mayor Neal Williams, who said he intends on making a skydive this year. ?I'm glad we got a chance to make this an even better event in 2002.?
When it appeared that there might not be enough votes from Rantoul trustees to bring the sky divers back for 2002, Kirlin volunteered to remove a provision from the contract that would have required the village to pay the convention $10,000 toward the event's $40,000 advertising budget.
Kirlin said the convention hopes to recoup that lost $10,000 by applying for a state tourism grant.
?But the state is in poorer financial shape than it was last year, so I think getting the grant will be a long shot,? he said.
Village board member Dan Molloy, who ended up voting in favor of the contract, said he had been concerned about paying the $10,000.
?We have to justify to our constituents the money we are spending here,? Molloy said.
Joining Molloy in support of the convention were village board members Herman Fogal, Jeremy Reale and Ron Loy.
Village board members Helen Lewis and Chuck Smith voted against approving the contract.
Lewis said she was concerned because the village lost some $60,000 on the 2002 event and that Rantoul's sales tax revenue in August 2002 was down 7.8 percent from the previous year.
?I can't justify asking our village employees to cut their budgets and make sacrifices when we are giving so much to the convention,? Lewis said. ?This is a win-win situation for the World Free Fall Convention and a lose-lose situation for the village.?
But village Comptroller Scot Brandon said the lower sales tax revenue was caused by lower automobile sales, which make up more than half of Rantoul's sales tax revenue.
?Just think how much your sales tax revenue would have gone down if we hadn't been here,? said Rock Island City Councilwoman Beth Mahlo, who also serves as convention public relations director.
Mahlo said she believes the 2002 World Free Fall Convention provided a total economic impact to the area of about $2.7 million, assuming that the 2,700 sky divers and another 1,400 accompanying family and friends spent $130 a day.
?When people come to the convention from the United Kingdom, China, Germany, France, South America and Canada, they are here to spend their money,? Mahlo said.
Rick Richardson, owner of the Liquor Locker, said his sales went up 41 percent during the convention.
?I'd jump out of a few planes myself for 41 percent,? he said.
The final contract settles several sticking points between the convention and the village, including the following:
? Aircraft owners will be allowed to make their own arrangements for fuel and must pay the village 20 cents a gallon for fuel purchased at the airport, to be divided between Rantoul and Precision Aviation, which runs the airport. Precision Aviation and the convention had been at odds over what to charge for fuel.
? Convention participants will be required to register for campground space from the Rantoul recreation department and pay the village $5 per camper per day.
? The convention agreed to pay for the cost of supplies for any additional infrastructure improvements related to the event.
Kirlin said he hopes the turnout will be larger this year, but he said much will depend upon the economy.
If people are interested in participating at this year's convention, either as a sky diver or as a volunteer, they can call (217) 222-5867 for more information. That's a Quincy number, and would be a long-distance call for most folks in East Central Illinois.

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The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[rhino 0]

Fantastic.. They did a kick ass job setting that place up last year.. It was excellent!!

The town restaurants were complaining that they stocked up expecting all the skydivers to be eating at their restaurants. My advise to some of them that I actually talked to was try and get something set up inside the convention itself??

If was fantastic none the less...

Rhino

[floormonkey 0]

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? Convention participants will be required to register for campground space from the Rantoul recreation department and pay the village $5 per camper per day.

I wonder how they are going to enforce that...and will it be worked into the cost of the RV grounds?

[skymedic 0]

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Hey there,
we made the correction on the message board....the $5 fee is between the Convention and the city. We, the Convention will pay it! It's an arrangement to pay for the Prairie Pines Campground's revenue loss during our ten days.
Hope this helps to clear up any confusion. The media is confused....imagine that!
Please do me a favor and post your response on the message board.

thanks and see you soon! Remember, it's always the same WFFC only we improve it every year!

Take care,
[email protected]

sent to me from bernice today!!!!...

Marc
otherwise known as Mr.Fallinwoman....

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http://www.dailyillini.com/aug03/aug08/news/stories/news_story01.shtml

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Bob's may set world record
Laura Jastram
The Daily Illini

(RANTOUL) It's not everyday 29 Bob's jump out of a plane together.

But an event at the annual World Free Fall Convention at Rantoul National Aviation Center set out to do just that and set a world record.

Sky Dive Greensburg, based out of Greensburg, Ind., held their fifth annual Bob-Way event. Each year, Bob-Way looks for as many skydivers as possible with the first, middle or last name Bob to help them set world records by jumping and holding a formation with other Bob's. The current record in the Guinness Book of World Records is 21.

Bob-Way began one day when 12 Bob's happened to be standing in the landing area and decided to try and set a record, said Bob Dougherty, owner of Sky Dive Greensburg. This year, 29 Bob's were attempting to break the record, he said.

Dougherty has been skydiving since 1969 and has logged a little over 1,600 jumps.

"We will go until we get it right," Dougherty said. "A lot of things have to fall."

Before the skydivers attempt their record from the air, they perform a "dirt dive" on the ground to work out the formation they will attempt in the air, he said.

"It's a ball," Dougherty said. "It's all for fun. If we break the record, great."

Skydivers usually jump from around 14,000 feet and pull their parachute around 3,000 feet, said skydiver Samantha Wininger.

When skydivers are attempting a formation they must "track," they hold their arms and legs straight down, for about 1,000 feet to get far away from the other jumpers so they can safely release their parachutes, Wininger said.

How fast the skydivers travel depends on the size of their chute and the wind speed, she said. The fastest Wininger has ever traveled is 122 miles per hour.

"It doesn't feel that fast at all," she said. "It is not like a roller-coaster feeling."

Bob Pope, organizer of Bob-Way, came from Dallas, Texas to attempt the record this year. Pope was one of the first Bob's to set the world record.

Pope began skydiving in 1964 and has made 5,000 jumps.

"It is always kind of fun," Pope said. "I think it will take two jumps to get it."

He said it would be nice to do a 40-person jump one year. It is not hard to get Bob's because people always come "straggling" in, Pope said.

Army Cpl. Norma Estrella is the only woman participating in the record attempt this year.

Estrella is also a member of the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army's Parachute Team.

She said she is taking the place of a Golden Knight named Bob who did the jump last year. Estrella has done about 700 jumps.

"It is nice to be invited to jump," Estrella said.

The Golden Knights spend 250 days out of the year traveling together, so it is pleasant to meet and skydive with other people, she said.

Thursday's first record attempt failed.

Dougherty said the problem was that people seemed more pre-occupied with the clouds and not with the formation.

"We cannot release in a cloud," Dougherty said. "This is the first cloud we hit today."

Weather delayed the second scheduled attempt at the record and ultimately prompted Bob-Way to be post-poned until this morning at 10.

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The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[PilotMike 0]

http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=14294

Rantoul mayor keeps promise, takes plunge

By TIM MITCHELL
© 2003 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online August 5, 2003

RANTOUL – Rantoul's mayor took a flying leap Monday evening.
Neal Williams, 46, summoned up the courage to sky dive at the Rantoul airport during the World Free Fall Convention.
"It's not something I ever imagined doing in my lifetime," Williams said. "I'm sure some people will wonder if I go with or without a chute, but the Free Fall people assured me I would get a chute."
Williams took part in a tandem jump, strapped to professional tandem jumper Marc Hogue, a former member of the Golden Knights Army parachute team.
At the end of a business after-hours celebration sponsored by the Rantoul Area Chamber of Commerce, Williams and Hogue climbed aboard a plane and took a flying leap 14,000 feet above the Rantoul airport before landing on the airport grounds.
"It was the most exhilarating thing I have ever done," Williams said. "I was nervous when I first got on the plane, but my tandem jumper was excellent. As we fell through the air, it was a complete rush because of all the wind.
"Then, when Hogue opened the chute, it was peaceful. I felt like a bird soaring through the sky."
Williams said jumping out of an airplane was one of the last things he imagined himself doing after being elected two years ago. But Williams summoned up the courage after his wife, Sheila, jumped at last year's convention.
"That woman wouldn't quit talking about how much fun it was," Williams said. "She kinda shamed me into it."
"I thought I would lose my stomach like on a roller-coaster ride," Sheila Williams said. "But sky diving is nothing like that at all. ... When you are floating under the parachute canopy, it is extremely peaceful. It is just like floating."
Then, last winter, as convention officials debated whether to return to Rantoul, Neal Williams promised he would take part if the event returned to Champaign County.
"I was apprehensive at first," Neal Williams said. "I think anybody would be, and the jitters really set in later on today. It's just an amazing feeling."
Joining the mayor in the jump were his father, Robert Williams, 65, of Rantoul, and Rantoul Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joe Bolser.
Robert Williams worked on airplanes for 20 years as a jet engine instructor at Chanute Air Force Base.
"I got to fly a lot, but I never got a chance to jump," he said.
When Robert Williams developed diabetes and had his legs amputated, one in 1998 and the other in 1999, he believed he would never get to sky-dive.
"It had always been my big dream," he said.
Then he found out about a program that allows paraplegics to do tandem sky-dives.
"I found out that Neal was going to jump, so I asked him if he could arrange for us to jump together," Robert Williams said.
Robert Williams said his jump was exhilarating.
"As soon as we landed, I was ready to do it again," he said.

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Benefitting from the 'free capture of verticality.'