Ron Mills

[Merkur 1]

Blue skies, Ron!
Thanks for the jumps.
M.

vSCR No.94
Don't dream your life - live your dream!

[JohnRich 4]

Since the funeral home link info will expire, I'm going to copy a few things from there into here, for posterity.

Ron Mills
Born: April 9, 1948
Died: March 20, 2010

Ron's ash dive, to release his cremated ashes into the sky in freefall, was conducted on April 10th. I hope to have photos and video of that soon, to be posted here.

[drjump 0]

Thanks John.

[JohnRich 4]

On April 10th, 2010, eight skydivers gathered together to release Ron Mills' cremated ashes into the beautiful blue sky over Texas.

Organizer: Henry Butler
Divers: Kristi Wiley-Bell, Kay Choate, Joey Johnson, John Rich, Chris Scaife, Mike Smith & Marian Sparks.
Video: Charlie "Tuna" Powell and Stacey Carl

The dive was a simple 8-way round formation. Henry exited holding the ash bag in both hands, and Mike flew up to Henry and grasped the handle on the other half of the bag. The remaining divers docked on Henry and Mike to complete the round formation. This was held until 6,000-feet whereupon Henry and Mike pulled the two halves of the ash release bag apart, setting Ron free into the sky one last time. Other skydivers gathered outside on the ground to watch.

Video, 5 minutes, wmv file: http://skydivingtuna.com/Ron.htm
Thank you, Tuna, for putting together this wonderful tribute to our friend.

Skydive Houston drop zone owner Todd Bell donated two free dives to all the participants for this tribute to Ron; the first one a practice dive, and then the actual ash release dive. Thank you, Todd.

Rest in peace, Ron.

[propacker 0]

Great video Tuna.
John, thanks for posting it.

[snofun 0]

Just heard of Ron passing. Will watch Tony Loper video of past jumps with him in memorial. God Bless Ron and his family.

Rule #1 of Skydiving: Safely Land An Open Parachute!

[SkyDivPilot 0]

Very saddened to hear of Ron's passing. He was one of my students from the early days. He will be missed

Blue skies and fair winds


Horace Burnett
D2479

Horace Burnett

[rwieder 0]

Quote

Long-time Houston skydiver Ron Mills passed away the evening of March 20th, 2010, at Hermann Memorial Hospital. His sister, Coreta was with him. More of his family is en route and they will let us know about arrangements for a service. I'll post that here when I become aware of it.

I guess I should drop in more often. I'm just learning of Ron's demise. He and I had some great times! A short anecdote-

Years ago at SDH Hugh flew his Casa to SDH, and we were having the time of our lives...as usual. At around noon ol' Tom olsen suggested we do some raft dives. We all chipped in and he went to town and bought 2 rafts, the really cheap ones. He gets them back to the DZ and we manifest for our raft dive. We dirt dived and got everybody on the same page b/c there was about 4 of them that have never been on a raft dive. In any event, we get to altitude and the raft started inflating to the point where I actually thought it was going to explode. I started letting the air out of it, and Hugh had to do a turn around for a good spot. He does all of that and we got everything into position for the raft dive. "Zero-G" comes soon enough. We launch the raft with the chickies in it and as soon as we were in air space the dang thing exploded, dumped the girls and as all of that was going on it was every man for him/her self. The rope that made up the handle around the JUNK caught Kevin's hackey and deployed his canopy and he had to ride that thing down. While the raft deployed his canopy, I was still hanging onto the rope, I looked up in just enough time to see his canopy inflating. In any event we were all in free fall, and next thing I know Ron swoops down to me and docks on me, he scared the heck out of me. We hung on and had a pretty good sky dive. That's one of my most favorite memories I have of Ron. I miss him. RIP Ron.

Best-
Richard

[fastphil 0]

Nothing but blue skies from now on

[rwieder 0]

Hippies!! yeah baaaabbbyyy! (Austin Powers) Who is everyone f/ L t/ R? I recognized most everyone, but not all. What is everybody in that pic, 15? J/K

Best-
Richard

[fastphil 0]

Hey Richard, hippies yeah, and most of us just missed the VietNam excursion. It's been 38 years but from what's left of my memory: The far left may be named Thurston (can't remember last name), in the doorway is Bill Lee, The one peeking out the door might be me, but it seems like I would have taken the pic, seated on the porch is Linda Smith, seated on the ground I don't remember, then Ron, of course, Mike Smith, Milton "Skeeter" Hendrix, and David "Omar" Bottrell. Here's another one of Ron, I'll let you guess the rest. Those were the days...

[maxmadmax 8]

Ron Mills!

You will not be forgotten!

Adios my friend.

Don't go away mad....just go away!

[skybill 22]

***

Quote

Damn!! Circumstances?

Cancer.

He's been fighting it for a couple of years. Had surgery, which didn't get it all. Underwent chemo treatments, which made him weak, and some of his hair fall out. You could tell something wasn't right,
because he didn't look good, and while he used to jump repeatedly all day long, it got to where he only had the strength to make one or two. But he wouldn't talk about it, at least not with me. Then he quit jumping altogether about a year ago.

He had bought a plot of land out in the country upon which he was looking forward to building his retirement home. He spent many weekend days clearing the land, cutting trees and running 'em through a wood chipper, while dropping by Skydive Houston to make a few jumps.

He loved to go off on long hiking trips for vacation, a passion which I shared with him, and we would often spend a lot of time talking about the neat places we've been in the outdoors.





Hi John,
The last two words of your post say it all!!! (Damn!! Circumstances??) 'Lost my Peggy to pancreatic 7 years ago..... 'Still crawling out of the hole from that one!!...
I'd like to leave you and everyone with a few thoughts I picked up ..along the way.....

Death changes everything. Time changes nothing. I still miss the sound of your voice, the wisdom of your advice, the stories of your life and just being in your presence. So, no, time changes nothing. I still miss you just as much today as I did the day you died. I just miss you.
-lessonslearnedinlife.com-


-Grief-
Grief never ends........ But it Changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith.........it is the price of Love.
-unknown-

Oh how well I have come to know the depth of these two verses since that fateful day....23NOV2010...............

skybill-out

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[maxmadmax 8]

Greetings!

If you had more than a sentence with Ron, consider yourself lucky.
He was the quiet guy.

Ron asked me about a lot in the country.
I found one in my subdivision.....took the sign down and delivered it to him.

Ron bought it.
He also bought a chipper shredder and a riding lawnmower.

He asked me about a place to store it.
Hell, Ron...just store it in my barn.

How much he asked me.
Told him that his money was no good here.

So he paid with a case of Shiner about every six months.

He wore that chipper shredder out...several times.
Sears lost big time on that extended warranty big time!

Then he got into the poison ivy on his lot.....ate his azz up!

All that said...every Saturday morning for a couple of years he was
at his lot cutting, chipping and shredding!

And....I had one jump with him years ago.

After he died, his brother, sister and niece came over to pick up his riding lawnmower.

They brought the last case of Shiner over for the "rent".

We busted one out each and said adios.

Regards,
Mad Max

Don't go away mad....just go away!