FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Skydiving Fayetteville helped continue Fayetteville's Santa Drop at the Arkansas Air and Military Museum.
Hundreds gathered to look at the skies on Saturday, Dec. 2, searching for Santa without his sled.
Museum Director Laci Prince said the founder, Leonard McCandless, started the Santa Drop tradition in the 90s. The tradition fell off for a little while, but the necessity to social distance during the pandemic revived it.
"During COVID, we were trying to find a way to do a COVID-safe Santa Claus. So we thought the best way to do it is kick him out in an airplane," Prince said.
Prince and John Harris, who helps at the museum, said this event is likely the biggest event to bring awareness to the museum.
"I arrived early because, from experience, I knew there was gonna be a lot of people," Rebecca Hulsey said as she visited the event with family.
Jolly Saint Nick did decide to stop by the museum this year with some extra gear and a steel reindeer with a shiny red spot to lead the way.
"Good old spot," Ian Walters, this year's skydiving Santa, said about the plane he skydived from. "She's a bit of an old plane, but she's a C182 Cessna."
Santa was accompanied by his three elves on the drop—Holly Hoover, Mike Ridolfo, and Kelsi Turk.
"You can go see Santa at the mall. You can go see him at Bass Pro. But have you ever seen him skydive?" Prince said.
Walters, Hoover, Ridolfo, and Turk are a part of the Skydiving Fayetteville team that is based out of the Fayetteville Regional Airport. He said free-fall drops could be 10,000 feet, but their team would drop from 5,000 so that viewers could see them jump out of the plane.
"A little intimidating, you know, because we are a smaller drop zone, so we don't do that many demos," Walters said.
This year the team had even bigger boots to fill as their original crew was missing one.
"Every single Christmas we'll be like, 'yep, this was Spleen's demo,'" Walter said.
For years, Mitch "Spleen" Church colored the skies with his distinct orange helmet, a flag, or his red stocking cap.
"He liked to advance in skydiving. And he was a very colorful, very fun personality," Walters said. "He had a pretty big family, and I believe a couple of adopted kids as well. So he really liked doing things for children. And he just really liked the idea of being Santa dropping in and making a splash for some kids' lives."
Church died this past September, so this year's skydiving Santa nearly didn't happen. To honor him, his freefalling friends at Skydiving Fayetteville made sure this Christmas tradition landed.
"This has brightened our day and our Christmas spirit," Ashlynn Snider said after visiting the Santa Drop with her children.
"He's gonna be missed. Because he was the jolly old guy. And, you know, we had a lot of good times together," Walters said. "I love you spleen. Love the memories we've had, and we'll continue on with everything in a manner that's going to make him happy."
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