Star Crest Recipient No. 9394
This has absolutely nothing to do with real estate, but it is kind of fun. In a little less than a year it will be 31 years since I earned my Star Crest Recipient award. The SCR is awarded to a skydiver when he or she exits an aircraft and free flies (not gripped or attached to anyone else) to a formation. The formation must contain at least skydivers and all grips in the formation must be held for at least 5 seconds.
I had only around 50 skydives when I got my SCR and was new to relative work. This is the art of creating formations with multiple skydivers. So a group of friends basically helped me get the award. By the way, Star Crest stands for "Select Type of Accomplished Relative Worker Combining Reliability, Enthusiasm, Skill, and Teamwork."
It was January 3, 1980 in Coolidge, AZ and we went up in a Twin Beech. We got to around 10,000 and I climbed out the open door and hung on to the plane as the rest of the divers lined up. The jumpmaster gave the OK and I let go, arched my back in order to be stable.
In a matter of seconds I had hit terminal velocity and was falling straight down at around 110 mph. Grinning like an idiot, I watched as the other skydivers swooped down. The first two grabbed my arms by the wrist. Then the other 9 joined into the round formation. We held it for probably 10 seconds before splitting up.
As the rest of the skydivers sped away from the formation so they would not collide when opening their parachutes, I just pulled my rip cord and enjoyed around a 3 minute ride under canopy before landing.
I had another 5 or so skydives at Coolidge before driving back to Texas and gave up the sport soon after that. The combination of being in college, outdated equipment and cost decided that for me.
I just looked at the SCR website and found my name on the list as being the 9,394th person to get an SCR. As of June of this year there were just under 15,000 recipients.
I've had more interesting moments while freefalling, like jumping out of a hot air balloon from 10,000 feet, but getting my SCR was quite a thrill!