07/12/2026
AT 77, SKYDIVER SEES NO NEED TO QUIT: World skydiving champion Jessie Farrington of Shelton, who will be 77 in September, continues to skydive five or six times per week.
Her love of family and sport have been central throughout her life. Since she was 15 years old, she has jumped from planes more than 10,000 times.
Farrington holds numerous gold medals and championship awards and has been featured on the cover of Parachutist Magazine several times, particularly for her participation in complex skydiver formations.
“Skydiving allows you to fly like a bird. It’s the sensation of flying, not falling,” Farrington said. “When you’re in the sky, it’s just total freedom.”
Kapowsin Air Sports, the family drop zone launched at Shelton by Jessie and her husband Jeff in 1979, is the largest skydiving center in the Northwest.
The two of them and their two adult children are involved in running the business, which will eventually pass to their grandchildren. Previously, Farrington’s father had operated Thun Field Skydivers at the site since 1964.
Besides skydiving, Farrington helps manage the manifest, which is the heart of the drop zone coordination system consisting of log bookings and registrations, load organizing and communications among pilots, ground crew and instructors.
As needed, she also greets visitors, drives the truck to pick up skydivers after their jumps, and fills in at the site’s commercial kitchen. She said she loves teaching and coaching others as her main focus these days.
But freefalling and soaring at a height of 13,000 feet above the ground excites her as much as it always has.
“What I like doing is formation skydiving. Normally, I jump with four to 20 people, and we make a variety of formations, constantly changing and flying around each other,” Farrington said. “As an older person, it’s something I’m as good at, or better than, many younger people because I’ve been doing it for so long. My shoulders are still strong, and I don’t yet see any reason to quit.”
Farrington learned to jump from her father, a World War II fighter pilot, who was still an active skydiver at age 85.
Later, she and Jeff taught their own children to skydive, although their first unofficial dives occurred in utero as Farrington continued to compete in championships.
“What I’m most proud of is that both of my kids became world champion skydivers, and that I taught them,” Farrington said. “It’s going to be great fun helping my grandkids learn, too.”
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