Family and friends bid farewell to Nate Gilbert Saturday with a full day of jumping, a memorial ash dive, a charity raffle for the family and one heck of a late night party. One week after the nationwide tracking dive in Nate Gilbert's memory, his ashes were released into the sky over Atlanta Skydiving Center.

Brother Ian Gilbert and finacee' Katie Hawkins were at the center of 23-person memorial ash dive. A 12-way formation was surrounded by 10 lurkers with Jim Vance above on video. At 8000 feet, Katie released Nate from Ian's arm into the sunset sky. Nate's ashes could be seen from the ground by family and friends.

Following a gathering in the landing area, friend Sporto played a short video of Nate showing him exactly as what he was best known for...an easy-going, talented and always smiling skydiver who openly shared his wealth of knowledge in all areas of skydiving. The Nate Gilbert "Have a Good Jump" Charity Raffle was next as TJ Landgren and Mike Gruwell announced more than $3300 had been raised for the Gilbert family. Numerous donated raffle prizes were given away.

Local DJs finished off the party celebrating Nate's life with music and videos throughout the night. A big thanks to all those who came out to comfort friends and family as well as share stories of our amazing Nate. A memorial Nate Gilbert ad will be on the back cover of the September issue of Parachutist. Nate's ASC ad he put together last month can be found on page 66 of this month's Parachutist.

This past week was a busy one for the AFF school at ASC. We had four new skydivers graduate the student AFF program. Congratulations to Brian Nicholls, Jonathan Nunes, Brent Register and Jay Templeton.

For those of you with Neptunes and Alti-2 altimeters, Blythe Jordan is the onsite field rep to help update the Neptune software as well as make minor repairs or replace lost parts of your Alti-2 or Neptune altimeter. She is also able to replace worn velcro straps or make new straps for both altimeters through Chuting Star Rigging Loft. Blythe, an ASC packer, is also the Skydivegear.com jumpsuit rep. Blythe can measure you and help with your color schemes for any RW, freefly or camera suit you want.

And finally, Jim Vance, our chief videographer, is now working alongside Mike Gruwell as a sales rep for Skydivegear.com. See Jim to order or purchase any stock or custom gear from altimeters to helmets to containers to parachutes. A new Skydivegear display office is being built next to manifest on the first floor of ASC. If you have any suggestions for new stock items for the gear sales store, let Jim, Mike or Blythe know.

See you all this weekend at ASC!

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