Sky-diving thrill: Free spirit, 73, rides to the earth again

TOOELE — Gary Humphreys never let anyone tell him what he could and couldn't do.

During the Korean War, no one held the gung-ho soldier back when he enlisted as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. No one could keep him from sneaking off base, disguised as a civilian, for a real Thanksgiving dinner. And no one could stop the now 73-year-old man from sky-diving last Friday.

"I have my 'bucket list'," he said. It's a wish list of everything he "wants to do before kicking the bucket." And nothing but the grave will keep him from completing it.

The lifelong horse lover has been to the Kentucky Derby. He has grown his own garden. Now he finally jumped out of a plane just to enjoy the thrill of plummeting to the earth at 120 miles per hour, this time without the Korean War painting a target on his back.

The 82nd Airborne was never deployed to Korea. It was "too important here in America, or at least that's what they told us," Humphreys said. But that didn't keep him from trying to get there.

Humphreys figured out when his commander left to play golf, and sneaked into his office. He shoved papers that would've sent him to Korea in the middle of the officer's stack of things to mindlessly sign. The commander accidently did put his signature on the orders, but realized Humphreys had pulled a fast one before they became official.

"He is a devil," said Mary Humphreys, his wife of about 40 years.

Humphreys' commanders always scolded the free spirit for wanting to have some fun in his parachuting exercises. But he would tug his chute to turn and spin anyway, and pay for it. He crashed into quite a few trees.

But tree branches couldn't deter him. Neither could six stents in his arteries, nor losing the use of his left eye. So on Friday, he joined his nephew Bob Jones and son-in-law Dennis Judd to fall through the sky once again.

Mary Humphreys watched from the ground.

"There they are," she shouted, pointing up to the three teal and white chutes drifting down like loose feathers.

"I thought he would never do it again," she said. "And now look where he's at."

When he was in the service, the highest altitude he'd parachuted from was about 2,700 feet. Skydive Utah's blue plane took him up to 13,000 feet.

He'd seen things go wrong before. While in the service, a lightweight Canadian soldier jumped from his plane and it became obvious his chute wasn't going to deploy. Everyone in the plane threw themselves after him. They saved his life.

But Humphreys had no fear as one would expect from a man undaunted by the words "no" and "can't." His hands weren't even shaking when he came to a graceful landing in a green field.

"I might do that again," he said, a huge smile on his face.

But there is another item, the last item, on his bucket list to check off: Win a few golf tournaments.

e-mail: mmcfall@desnews.com