Ex-President Bush
still plans parachute jump

updated 2:20 p.m. ET June 8, 2004

HOUSTON - Former President Bush is planning to go ahead with an 80th birthday parachute jump this weekend following the week of mourning for former President Reagan.

Bush and his wife, Barbara, will attend Friday’s Reagan memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, then immediately return to Houston for a birthday party Saturday in Houston and the Sunday parachute jump over College Station, said Jim McGrath, spokesman for the organizing committee, 41(at) 80. The group’s name is for the 41st president at 80 years old.

Bush, a Navy pilot who bailed out from a damaged plane during World War II, also made a parachute jump on his 75th birthday.

He will be accompanied by members of the Golden Knights, the Army parachute team, but will not be linked to a younger jumper, McGrath said.

“This is a very, very important thing to the president, this is a solo jump. There will be knights around him, but it is not a tandem jump,” McGrath said Tuesday.

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