Each fall, a question teachers commonly ask their students as a new school year begins is “What did you do over the summer?”

The chances are quite good that no one can top the accomplishments of Becky Rider, the music instructor at Vermillion Middle School.

In mid-May, just as the last school year was coming to an end, Becky traveled to California, and met her two brothers, Dan and Dave. Dave, who lives in Los Angeles, is two-and-half years younger than Becky; Dan, from Chicago, the youngest of all of the Rider siblings, is 15 years younger than his sister.

Together, the three of them did something that’s a bit spectacular and life-changing and as unusual as it is common. Their experience, while something new, was special because it changed something that the three siblings already possessed – their family bond – and made it stronger.

On May 18, Becky, Dan, and Dave, after a quick lesson and with the help of professionals, jumped into a clear blue California sky from a perfectly good airplane flying at 12,500 feet.

They fell for nearly a mile. Ripcords were pulled, parachutes billowed above their heads, transforming their plummet into a gentle downward glide toward the ground.

It happened so quickly. And yet it was a strongly galvanizing experience that the three Rider siblings still celebrate.

It was David’s idea. He has battled a variety of health problems for much of his life, and has made it known to family members that to celebrate his 50th birthday, he planned to do something big, to make a bold statement about hanging on to life through its up and downs. He planned to go skydiving.

While the Rider family gathered together in California last December for Christmas, they discussed David’s plan, and decided he shouldn’t really celebrate such a milestone by himself.

“David and I had been talking about this for four or five years,” Becky said. “He really has been pointing towards this, and it was years ago that I told him that I would go with him. Periodically, he would come up to me and ask, ‘Are you still serious about this?’ and I always said yes.”

Becky has conquered her own health challenges. Twenty-two years ago – her first year of employment with the Vermillion School District – she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I was diagnosed the first fall I was here,” Becky said. “So I missed my first set of Christmas concerts, and my first end of semester grades, and I found out I was not irreplaceable. Even at a new school, everything went on okay without me. Maybe that’s a good thing for all of us to know, too.

“I’m kind of a control freak, and I teach my kids that. I just tell them, flat out, that I need them to do things my way in my classroom, so it was kind of nice to know that I could let go of that,” she said.

The cancer was something she couldn’t control. She decided her best option was to be treated by her doctor in Omaha, and stay with family there.

“People here in Vermillion were so nice to me. They took care of things at school for me, and took care of my apartment while I was away,” she said. “The school took really good care of me, and the people around here took really good care of me.”

Having so much to celebrate, Becky agreed to join Dave in his special celebratory birthday skydive. And Dan, who lives near Chicago, had already gone skydiving once a couple years ago and loved it. So he, too, agreed to be part of the troupe of Rider siblings that marked Dave’s special birthday by leaping out of a plane.

“Dan got a jump for his birthday from his wife a couple years ago, and he was anxious for a chance to go back up,” Becky said, “so last Christmas, when were together as a family in California and talking about it, he said, ‘if you guys are serious about this, then I’m going to come, too.”

A third younger brother, Steve, was unable to participate. He works for the U.S. State Department, and currently lives in Helsinki, Finland. He was present in spirit, however, having sent Dave a special t-shirt to wear during his jump, along with a couple toy parachutes.

“He said, ‘I can’t be there, but here are couple things to add to the fun,’” Becky said.

Last May, Becky and Dan both flew to California to meet with Dave at Skydive Perris, located near San Diego. Skydive Perris is a skydiving resort center, with a large fleet of aircraft, and a vertical wind tunnel used both for training and for fun.

“They have one of the bigger jump schools in the country,” Becky said. “We did the indoor wind tunnel first … so we knew what it was going to feel like. The on-ground instruction was pretty quick – we watched an instruction video, and then we had to sign all of the legal forms that are necessary when you do something like this.

“And my instructor, Glenn Pierce, repeated the process we had to follow several times. Even as we’re getting on the plane, he’s repeating the instructions to me,” she said.

Neither Dave, Becky or Dan jumped solo – they each left the plane strapped to their instructor tandem style. Just before exiting the plane, despite the constant advice doled out by Glenn, he still had to gently push on Becky’s forehead so that her head would be in the proper position.

There was a lot going through her mind as she looked down from an altitude of approximately two miles to the ground below.

Earlier, her heart began pounding as she walked toward the plane to board it. Her pulse rate hadn’t slowed any as she and Glenn crouched in the plane’s large open doorway, ready to tumble out.

“That was a scary moment, and I didn’t ever think about backing out,” Becky said. “I wanted to do it, but at that moment, you think ‘I’m over two miles above the ground, and I’m going to fall out of this plane.’ That message flashes by real fast in your mind, and I think the smart part of your body is going, ‘Really?’ I had no idea what my pulse had to be at that point.

“Everything to that point had been ‘knowns’ to me. I’ve been up in a plane, and I’ve been up in a small plane,” she said. “I know that, but at the moment just before the jump, I didn’t know what I was about to experience. I think it’s that realization that you are about to do something new and kind of crazy. That was the scariest moment.”

Once Becky and Glenn left the plane, they were soon falling to earth at over 100 miles per hour. “I think they open the chute at between 7,500 and 7,000 feet,” she said, “and we jumped at 12,500. It takes about 30 seconds to fall that far.

“It happens so quickly, and yet sometimes I think the free fall is the part I remember the best of the whole experience,” Becky said.

“I don’t know how much I’m simply remembering from the experience itself, or if it’s just from watching the video, but you are so aware of every second of that.”

She only knows of one way to describe the experience to those who haven’t tried it.

“It feels like flying,” Becky said, “because you really are in the air, and because you don’t look down, to me that’s the way I’d describe it. To me, it was a lot more like flying than falling. You are aware of the air going past you, but the horizon doesn’t really change that much during the 5,000 feet that you are falling, because you are up so high.”

Just seconds before Becky and Glenn exited the plane, a videographer jumped and recorded her free fall and the opening of the parachute. He also stayed in free fall longer, opening his chute later so that he would land before Becky and Glenn so that he could record their touchdown.

With prompting from Glenn, Becky reached back and pulled the ripcord when they reached about 7,000 feet.

“It’s just a snap, because you change the rate of your descent so fast,” she said.

Floating to earth under a parachute is obviously different than freefalling, with some unexpected side effects. The maneuvers they had to make, complete with lots of swinging, swaying and turning, was a bit dizzying, Becky discovered.

“During the free fall, I simply looked straight at the horizon,” she said, “ and after the chute opened, I looked down and I think my inner ear began telling me that part of the jump wasn’t as fun.

I so thought it would be the opposite. I thought I would be terrified until we could slow down so that I could begin to enjoy it.

“The falling part is exhilarating,” she said. “It really was amazing, and that part is over so fast. We’ve been talking about this for years, and in 35 seconds, you’re done falling.”

It was a bit windy that day, so all of the tandem jumpers were instructed to touchdown on their rear ends rather than their feet.

“You just lift everything up, like a bad Pilates, and he (the instructor) lands on his butt and I land on him, basically,” Becky said.

After gently hitting the ground, she was soon reunited with Dave and Dan. All three of them were pumped full of adrenaline after such an extreme physical and emotional experience.

“It’s euphoric,” she said.

The three siblings celebrated by going out to eat and dining on barbecued ribs.

“I think at that moment, we were all really, really conscious – and this is why I feel bad for Steve – that the three of us did something together. Talk about a bonding thing. Nobody else shared it.

I think if Steve were in the United States at the time, he would have jumped, too.

“It makes my dad teary to talk to about it,” Becky said. “I sent him the picture of the three us that was taken after the jump, and I wrote ‘Your crazy kids love you,’ and gave it to him for Father’s Day. He said it was one of the greatest Father’s Day gifts he’s ever gotten.”

Not being a parent herself, she said, “I don’t know what it feels like to know that your kids love each other enough to do something like that together.

“But that seems really, really meaningful to him,” Becky said.