For the past several years, the U.S. Naval Academy Parachute Team has been in a building phase, and 2019 was a banner year.

The 2019 USPA National Collegiate Skydiving Championships, held December 26-January 1 at the Florida Skydiving Center in Lake Wales, was bittersweet, as longtime DZ manager and valued member of the skydiving community Betty Hill lost her 20-year battle with cancer shortly before the event.

Amy Benton and Chazi Blacksher of The Working Girls event organizing team, along with a team of heroic volunteers, created the wonderful superhero-themed Super SIS Weekend at Skydive Arizona in Eloy January 24-26.

USPA tasks each Safety and Training Advisor with filing an incident report when a skydiving death occurs, but S&TAs are not the only people who can file a report, and a death is not the only reason for filing one.

As chief judge at the 2019 USPA National Collegiate Skydiving Championships at Florida Skydiving Center in Lake Wales, Kirk M. Knight chose to receive USPA’s prestigious Gold Medal for Meritorious Service—bestowed on him by unanimous acclaim of the USPA Board of Directors earlier in the year—at the banquet following the event.