THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607150057
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WEST POINT, VA. LENGTH: 44 lines
A Virginia woman has made her 10,000th parachute jump, becoming one of only two women in the world to have five-figure jump totals.
Carolyn Clay, 46, made the jump Saturday, diving in formation with her comrades from the Peninsula Skydiving Club in West Point.
``I take some pride in it,'' Clay said of her record. ``It's taken a lot of years and a lot of dedication to get there.''
Twenty-seven years to be exact. In 1969, Clay was stationed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland without a car. Bored stiff, she approached a local skydiving club and asked if she could join.
She became an addict. She tried other hobbies, but said she found white-water rafting simply ``OK,'' and bungee-jumping ``just not challenging enough.''
The only thing that quenched the Williamsburg resident's thirst for adventure was a 13,500-foot skydive, covering about 11,000 feet in about a minute of free falling.
``She's an animal,'' said Robert Glenn of the Peninsula Skydivers' club.
The only woman with more jumps to her name than Clay is airline pilot Cheryl Stearns.
Clay specializes in jumps that involve long free falls - the time between jumping out of the plane and opening the parachute.
So far, she has accumulated about 144 hours in free fall - that's the equivalent of jumping out of a plane, falling at several hundred feet per second, and pulling the ripcord six days later.
``I have a tremendous amount of fun,'' Clay said.
Her jump logs list tangled lines and other mishaps, but Clay said she has never suffered more than a few bumps and bruises while skydiving.
Clay, who works in telecommunications at the Surry Nuclear Power Plant, isn't easily dissuaded from jumping out of airplanes. She made plans to jump this weekend despite fears that hurricane Bertha would spoil her 10,000th jump.
``Carol scared the hurricane away,'' said a bystander at the jump site.
KEYWORDS: PARACHUTE JUMPING SKYDIVING by CNB