by Jim Bates

Rayelene (or Raye) Wilson Koontz, of Torrington, Connecticut is a five-foot-one-inch-tall veteran skydiver, emergency room trauma nurse, wife, working mother, US Naval Reserve officer, scuba diver, skier, gymnast, and Sunday School teacher. She started parachuting on New Year's Day 1973, after several weeks of watching a boyfriend making jumps in Connecticut. At the time she was a student at a nursing school in Waterbury -- her goal was to be a registered nurse -- and having been athletic all her life, and seeing how everyone at the DZ was enjoying parachuting, she decided to try it herself. The First Jump Course instructor for Rayelene and several other students in the same class was Ellen Jefferies, one of the Connecticut club's earliest female instructor/jumpmasters. Though Raye later admitted to "being paralyzed with fear as she floated back to earth," once she landed she was determined that she wanted to learn to be a skydiver.

Rayelene proved to be an avid and excellent student. Her several instructors and jumpmasters agreed she was a "quick study" when it came to absorbing instructions and performed each requirement for advancement in a manner a notch above the average student. Learning quickly, she progressed rapidly through the minimum five static-line jumps and through several levels of delayed freefalls, advancing through 30-second-delays, until "off instruction."

She wasted no time making one proficiency jump after another. But she knew that there was a lot to still learn to become a "real skydiver." Her athleticism would pay off for her. She had started skiing and ballet at the age of three and later began swimming and gymnastics. Ballet instruction, practice, and performing went on well into her teen years, and she's still an avid downhill skier.

Raye was told by champion accuracy competitors in her club, that she had now joined (Connecticut Parachutists Inc., better known as CPI), that she had better-than-average student skills in landing close to a target. Thus motivated, she worked diligently to learn the art of accuracy jumping (a.k.a., "precision parachuting"). At the urgings of club members, she entered local and regional accuracy competitions, began placing well in standings, then started winning third, second, and first places in women's categories.

Rayelene also had her eye on another competition parachuting event --"style"; turning a "series" of turns and loops in the quickest time and as "clean" as possible, striving for no judge's penalties. She practiced "style" freefall maneuvers until she ultimately learned to do "style sets" in competitive times. Over the course of several years she steadily moved up in women's competitive style and accuracy standings. In the 1977 Northeast Conference ("Regionals") Meet -- qualifying competitors for the national competition -- Rayelene placed first in Accuracy, second in Style, and first Overall, starting a string of competition awards. Unable to compete in 1978, she entered the 1979 Regionals and repeated her first Conference Meet standing. She was ready for national competition.

Later in 1979 she headed for that year's US National Parachuting Championships. In her first Nationals she won three women's bronze medals, placing second in Accuracy and Style events, and for ranking second Overall. In 1980 she won no medals at the Nationals, placing fourth in Accuracy, Style, and Overall standings. Personal commitments had cut into her training time and competition skills in the women's events had heightened. Raye knew she had to return to extensive training to again be a medalist.

Her determination once more paid dividends. She was a bronze medalist in both the 1981 and 1982 US Nationals for her three third place standings. Her champion qualities and Nationals achievements also earned her berths on several US Parachute Teams, after that, she retired from competition. While Raye was steadily training to be a competition parachutist, she was also a first-jump-course instructor and jumpmaster for CPI, the club with that she had started her skydiving. During the six-year period of 1976-1981 she gave classroom training and was a static-line and freefall jumpmaster for some 300 new, intermediate, and advanced students. She became an accomplished relative work jumper and also made club demo jumps.

Further wanting to give something back to the club that had helped her develop as a skilled parachutist, she served a one-year term as CPI's president during 1981. In 1988 she became an officer in the US Naval Reserve. "I wanted," she said, "to put my skills as a registered nurse to use for my country." Today she is in the inactive Naval Reserve and is expecting to be discharged soon. Also in 1988, she married a skydiver - Jim Koontz, who has also been the parachute club's president. He is an FAA Master Parachute Rigger and a skydiver with over 2,000 jumps. The Koontzes have a five-year-old daughter, Jessica. Rayelene made twelve jumps before she knew she was pregnant, then postponed parachuting until after the baby was born. "I was forty years old and didn't want to take any chances," she said.

Also, when she turned forty she reached another plateau in sport parachuting, membership in POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty Society), a twenty-five-year-old organization with a worldwide membership of over 5,000 members. It's a great social group, but POPS members also hold well attended, hotly contested local, regional, national, and international parachuting competitions. Many jumpers who were dedicated, intense competitors during their twenties and thirties continue to find the same outlets for competitive energies in POPS meets at every level and throughout the world. Twenty-one years and six months after her first parachute jump, Rayelene made her 3,000th jump. Since then she has been awarded USPA's Double Diamond Wings for 3,000 freefall skydives. To date Raye has 3,032 jumps and is looking forward to warmer weather in New England to get back skydiving. Now that her daughter Jessica is five years old, Raye feels she can jump more regularly, but only as a recreational parachutist. While the US Team trained, eight to ten time jumps would be made daily, but her parachuting now will be cut back to four or five times on a weekend day. With more air time this summer she expects to earn USPA's Gold Freefall Badge denoting 24 hours in freefall.

Rayelene Wilson Koontz, at forty-four, says her life is full. She explains, "I love my family, I love my job, and I love jumping out of airplanes."

She expects to keep on jumping as long as her body lets her, and she has a goal in her future -- to be known as "that grandmother who jumps out of airplanes."