Hitting the Mark
By Tom Zukowski

Keith Bergeron hones in on the target on his way to second place. Photograph by Eric Boyd.

The 13th annual Lew Sanborn Accuracy Meet again took place at Skydive Spaceland in Rosharon, Texas, April 15-16. In addition to an accuracy meet, the event also included a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and Texas Children’s Hospital.

In addition to the open-class accuracy competition, an intermediate class and a POPS class have become standard parts of this competitive event, as has sport accuracy. Saturday morning arrived crisp and cool with a stiff breeze and a few scattered clouds overhead. Meet director and chief judge Laughlin and her staff, John Goetsch, Rose Goetsch and Cindi Bagley, held the draw for jump order, and the meet got underway.

The first load, all open-class competitors, lifted off in the Twin Otter under a lowering and thickening cloud cover. While the marginal wind conditions made it difficult for many, Jimmy Drummond, Keith Bergeron and Joe Ablitt all scored dead centers on the three-centimeter electronic scoring pad.

The next Otter load, consisting mostly of Air Force cadets and a few POPS members, found that the base of the clouds had lowered with few openings. They had to make multiple passes for all the jumpers to exit.

At this point, the drop zone flew the Cessna to complete the sport accuracy portion of the meet, with Matt Bessonette earning a perfect score. The Cessna continued to fly the second round of the open class as the winds increased.

The open class completed two of its six rounds before the winds exceeded the competition limits. Laughlin called a weather ­hold, and at 7 p.m., she called the meet complete.

Drummond, the new LSAM champion, finished with a total score of 0.00 under the most adverse of conditions. Bergeron took second place, with Rhonda Reichel in third.

Complete results appear at www.lewsanborn-accuracy.com.

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