Published: August 08, 2009 10:55 pm      

Jumpers put on exhibition

Event continues today

WORTHINGTON — Although they’re miles removed from one another in terms of the amount of risk they involve, Jonathan Morris says skydiving is a bit like eating potato chips.

“It’s something you can’t do just once,” he said.



Morris, 19, of Raceland, parachuted for the first time a year ago. His first skydiving experience, he said, was a tandem jump with his friend, Phil Henry.

Since then, Morris, a junior at the University of Kentucky, said he has made more than 200 jumps.

“I just fell in love with it,” he said. “It’s a very rewarding experience. The feeling of peace that it gives you, there’s nothing quite like it.”

Morris was one of eight skydivers who spent Saturday jumping at Ashland Regional Airport as part of an event intended to promote and to build interest in the sport. The jumps began at 8 a.m. and continued until dusk.

The event, which continues today at the west end of the airport, is sponsored by Tri-State Skydivers, a South Point-based business that offers skydiving instruction.

Tri-State Skydivers owner Larry Lemaster said the event also was intended to establish the Worthington airport as the group’s Kentucky base of operations. The group also jumps at Lawrence County Airpark in Chesapeake and at Robert Newland Airport in LeSage, W.Va., he said.

Lemaster, whose business owns and operates two Cessna 182 airplanes, said he is a veteran of more than 2,500 parachute jumps.

“I’ve jumped off everything from hot-air balloons to helicopters to a Boeing 727,” he said.

He said one of the things he enjoys most about the sport is how it serves as an equalizer, of sorts.

“You see everyone from doctors to CEOs to guys who dig ditches for a living,” he said. “When we’re out here, we’re all just skydivers.”

Jerry Laslo of South Point said his first jump, which he made three years ago, was supposed to have been his only one.

“I just wanted to try it,” he said. “Now, it’s something I crave.”

In fact, Laslo said his addiction to skydiving is so strong that if he goes more than a couple of weeks without doing it, he starts having dreams about it.

He admitted that all of those dreams are pleasant ones, either. Occasionally, he said, a nightmare about something going wrong during a jump will creep in.

Laslo said the adrenaline rush from skydiving tends to lessen after one has made a few jumps. However, he said he “still gets butterflies” when he’s about to go out of the door of the plane.

Saturday’s event was to have featured jumps by renown parachuting expert Luigi Cani, using the world’s smallest canopy, 37 square feet — roughly the size of a twin bed sheet. However, Cani, a Brazil native living in Los Angeles, was unable to jump due to a shoulder injury.

Cani said jumping with a chute so small — a normal-sized canopy for an experienced jumper is about 120 square feet — is “like flying a jet fighter. It’s very responsive, very fast and very dangerous.”

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.