She would have liked to have been remembered in this forum many years from now, with thousands of jumps under her belt. But she was just getting started. Skydiving was her next, new adventure before she went to graduate school. She died on only her 6th jump, her second weekend of jumping. She had carefully researched skydiving training centers within driving distance before deciding to go to Cushing, OK. Now she is remembered for the manner of her death and the mystery that still surrounds it. She became silent after her canopy opened at 4,000 feet and somehow slipped out of an apparently secure harness. Her empty harness with chute floated into the branches of a tree in the Oklahoma countryside. Exactly what happened and how it might be prevented is a topic for another forum. This was an exceptional young lady, and that is no cliche. From the time she could walk, she was climbing everything in sight. She loved challenges, was brilliant, hard-working, and generous to a fault. She was extremely close to her brother, her only other sibling, and to her parents. We family and friends who knew her from birth are still stunned and heavy of heart that this would happen. I find a small consolation in another cliche "She died doing what she wanted to do". But that the dive was less than perfect... that would bug her to no end! I wanted to share about the person behind the story. Thanks for letting me do that here
