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howardwhite

"Pioneers" Reunion

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Brian Williams was Jerry Bird's FJ instructor and put me out on a student jump at Arvin. Bill Newell is the one for stories from those days.

Which begs the question: What are the criteria for a 'pioneer'? The southern California jumpers took considerable pride in their outlaw status and boycotted PCA for years. Thus, low A, B, C, or D-numbers don't figure very prominantly among 'em. It was only when 10-man speed stars became a National's event - with the prerequisite of a D license to compete - that a lot of the best relative workers grudgingly joined and did the paperwork.

I have heaps of respect for those mostly military freefallers who earned the early licenses, and experimented with body position/control. The serious stylists, in particular, laid the foundations for RW, and were instrumental in spreading the word about skydiving. But it was the SoCal rebels who set skydiving on the evolutionary branch that led to where the sport is today.

Equally, how many of the early experimenters (pioneers) in CRW/CF have low D licenses?

The sad - even disgraceful - thing is that today they receive so little recognition from USPA or the skydiving community at large. I suspect Howard White will redress that oversight as the organization's museum takes shape.

Hoop
SCR242 SCS 90

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Got that right Hoop. Not just SoCal, but the Hinckley gang. I sat and signed hunderds of jumps to get guys liscenses to go to the 10 man nationals. Some of those people had to have more than 2000 jumps and never had a log book. And once they had been to the nationals cared less about the liscense or how many jumps they had.
wildman
U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

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New addition to the list of those planning to be in Raeford in May: Al King.
He might even bring Sport Beth if she can get time off from work.
Al is already committed to being in a small-way ()
Al, one of the developers of the AFF program and still an active AFF instructor, will also have his first exposure to tunnel flying.

HW

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It was great to have everyone come to Raeford and a big thanks to Linda for her hard work!!! I hope we can have another one out this way again sometime, it was much fun!

Kris Ward
“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” Sydney Smith

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And thanks for Raeford (Gene Paul and Tony) and Paraclete XP (Tim) for being great and generous hosts and Linda Miller for organizing an amazing event.
Here are just a few pix to show you what you missed if you weren't there.
-Buddy Blue and Coy McDonald
-D-1 signs another logbook
-Pop (D-47) about to jump the PAC (He was also later in a seven-way)
-Bob Sinclair and admirer

HW (who owes beer for his first PAC jump, too)

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Great shot of Pop! Thanks for sharing it.

Sorry I couldn't make it down there. Would have been great reconnecting with so many folks from the past.
DZGone.com
B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152.

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

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Quote

I will have a scanner with me.
I'll grab whatever pictures people want to share.
In Salt Lake City last year, Ted Strong had a huge stack of black and white pix taken by Tom Schapanski, who was well known both as a photographer and competitor. Unfortunately I didn't get to scan any of them and Jim Arender took a bunch of them home with him.
I wish I had been able to record peoples' stories (well, at least some of them.) Particularly memorable were the early jump stories from Brian Williams, a (definitely) pioneering southern California jumper.

HW



Hey Howard
Did you get what you needed from the books? Hope there was enough interesting stuff for you!
J



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What the hell -- if you've got gray in your hair you're an old timer. I just turned 60 and can brag that I'm SOS-1353. You have to love a sport that takes so much pride in having a low number anything.

At the Raeford Pioneers fest, I was in a three-point 7-way where Al King (59) and I were the youngest in the formation. Everyone was hoping we'd just nail a round. The old farts can do it once in awhile.
SCR-442, SCS-202, CCR-870, SOS-1353

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