TEAM FASTRAX TAKES COMMUNITY LEADERS ON TANDEM SKYDIVES TO PROMOTE OHIO CHALLENGE HOT AIR BALLOON FESTIVAL
Community leaders will take to the skies over Middletown Wednesday and Thursday, July 19-20; to tandem skydive with JUMP Institute and members of the Fastrax Skydiving Team. From 9 am to 3 pm, both days, on the hour, another local leader will take flight strapped to an experienced skydiver. Flights will leave and jumpers will land at Middletown’s Hook Field Airport.
Kelly Cowan, Director of Miami University Middletown, is already scheduled to jump on Wednesday at 11:00 AM. Other jumpers include: Rhonda Freeze, Mayor of Trenton; Bill Murphy, City of Middletown Economic Development Director; Beth Knueppel, AK Steel engineer; David Schiavone, Middletown City Councilman and realtor; Kay Wright, Middletown Community Foundation Director; Tim Abbott, Duke Energy Regional Director and Fairfield City Councilman; John Venturella, Partner at Clark, Schaefer, Hackett Accounting Co. and President Middletown Board of Education; Jimmy Jonson, Middletown Airport Manager and James Wannemacher, hot air balloon pilot and media reporters.
On Friday, high school students will be involved in a free motivational team building, training session led by David Hart of JUMP Institute. The local Donatos Pizza is donating lunch. The Fastrax team is not only a world-class skydiving organization competing at the highest levels around the globe; it is also the basis for a unique corporate training program provided by JUMP Institute. In fact, 20 professionals will participate in a day of corporate team building, sponsored by Fifth Third Bank, on Tuesday, July 18.
The team will be practicing, holding corporate workshops, taking dignitaries on skydives and holding the high school workshop all during the week prior to their many appearances at the Ohio Challenge Hot Air Balloon Festival July 21-22-23, 2006 at Smith Park in downtown Middletown. Thirty hot air balloons will compete in a sanctioned competition event while two special shape balloons join the flights. Specialty sport events, musical concerts, festival foods, arts and crafts vendors, a carnival, and much more are all a part of the three-day event.
On-site parking is $5 per vehicle. Admission is free to pedestrians walking into the park.
Festival hours are Friday 4-10:30 pm, Saturday Noon to 10:30 pm, Sunday Noon to 7 pm.
For more information about Ohio Challenge, call 513-422-3030 or visit www.ohiochallenge.com.
For more information on Team Fastrax and JUMP Institute, call 513-907-6805 or visit www.teamfastrax.org or www.jumpinstitute.com
#####