Jumping for Joel: Memorial event generates skydiving scholarships
<p>Joel Atkinson is pictured in 2006 leading a tandem jump at Skydive Lost Prarie. Atkinson and four other people died in 2007 when their plane crashed. A memorial fund and scholarship keep Atkinson’s memory alive.</p>
As the adrenaline rushes and parachutes open at the Lost Prairie Boogie over the next nine days, thoughts will turn to Joel Atkinson. Those who knew him will smile and remember how passionate the 25-year-old Whitefish man was about skydiving.
Atkinson, an avid skydiver and skydiving instructor, was one of five people killed in May 2007 when their airplane crashed while trying to make an emergency landing on the Skydive Lost Prairie runway west of Marion. Joel’s family established a memorial fund and scholarship program in his memory that same year.
The mission, written by Joel’s only brother, Wade, was to “commemorate Joel’s love of skydiving and to support the skydiving community.”
Money raised through the Joel Atkinson Memorial Fund provides scholarships to encourage beginning skydivers to advance their training.
This year, the memorial “Jump for Joel” will be Friday, Aug. 9. Fundraising activities such as silent auctions and raffles will run from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Meadow Peak Skydiving drop zone next to Skydive Lost Prairie near Marion.
Coordinating the fundraising this year is Candice Thornton Day, a friend of Joel who completed her first tandem jump with him in 2005.
“He was such an amazing person,” Day said. “I felt I wanted to help out with keeping his memory alive.”
A number of area artists, craftsmen and photographers will sell their work at the scholarship event and will donate a portion of the proceeds to the memorial fund. Many have donated items to be raffled or put up for silent auction. Auction items range from gift certificates to local restaurants to a Whitefish bed-and-breakfast two-night stay.
Skydivers will have a table set up to sell used skydiving jumpsuits and equipment, and one of the pilots is setting up a lemonade stand, Day said.
All of the money raised goes toward the scholarships, and this year’s recipients will be announced during the daylong event.
“It’s a really great thing for young skydivers,” Skydive Lost Prairie Owner Fred Sand said. “What the Atkinson family has done is marvelous.”
Joel got into the sport when his parents, Jim Atkinson and Gail Shay Linne, let him go skydiving for his 18th birthday. That first jump triggered an immediate passion for dropping through the air, and Lost Prairie became his second home. He was working as a tandem-jumping instructor at the time of his death.
“Our first Joel scholar was Joel’s best friend and fellow skydiver, Dave Rodriquez,” Gail Linne said. “Since then 16 men and one woman have received scholarships.
“I have watched how these young people — new to skydiving — have embraced the sport with a higher level of confidence by receiving a scholarship,” Linne said. “Their skills are improved by the coach dives from the fund. Their safety is ensured when they receive [at the second level of the scholarship program] an altimeter.”
It’s not uncommon for scholarship recipients to give back to the skydiving community by helping out. For example, Eric Harding, a 2010 scholarship winner, is helping out with this year’s fundraiser.
“They become a part of the skydiving community,” Linne said.
“There is a fellowship that grows among skydivers that closely defines why Joel fell in love with the sport. These strong connections with healthy, happy, focused skydivers, along with the freedom that skydiving offered Joel, was what I now am privileged to see by being a part of the Joel Fund. I believe I can speak for all our family in saying that Joel’s spirit lives on strongly because of the scholars who are following in his footsteps.”
In addition to presenting the scholarships, Linne takes care of a memorial garden at Lost Prairie that commemorates the lives of all five lost in 2007.
Anyone interested in donating to the Joel Atkinson Memorial Fund or in donating items for the auctions and raffles can contact Day at 885-7023 or email candiceday28@yahoo.com.
Other victims of the 2007 plane crash were pilot Troy Norling, 28, from Onalaska, Wis.; tandem-jump instructor David Landeck Jr., 25, of Missoula; and novice jumpers Kyle Mills, 31, and Jenny Sengpiel, 25, both of Great Falls.
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.