CHARLEVOIX — A Northern Michigan principal is jumping into the new school year - literally. It’s all in an effort to inspire the children and celebrate the new year.
Charlevoix Middle/High School principal Dan Terryberry said it was his first time jumping out of a plane.
“I was just excited. And then the jumping it was, it was such an adrenaline rush. I never thought I’d do it, but I would say try it if you ever even thought about it. Try it because it is incredible,” he said.
Every year the school tries to kick off the school year in fun and unconventional ways. This year’s was an Olympic theme, and the idea evolved from having someone else parachute in to having the principal parachute down himself at the end of closing ceremonies.
“It started off kind of like a joke. And then it kind of went on for that. And Skydive Charlevoix and Luther Kurtz was like, oh, we’d love to help you out,” said Terryberry.
With the help from Kurtz, Terryberry was able to surprise the students, most not even realizing it was him until he was close to the ground.
“They could kind of tell from my shoes that it was me and a lot of the kids, but the roar of them and, you know, afterwards, I’m like, you know, give me some high fives and things like that,” said Terryberry.
The principal said it’s been great talking to students and seeing their reactions, but it’s not all fun and games.
There are life lessons he hopes students will take away from his jump.
“We want them to be as smart as they can be, but we also want them to live life like we want them to take chances. Try a different activity or do something outside your comfort zone,” Terryberry said.
Terryberry said he’s happy to lead by example and that it’s helping him foster those critical relationships with students.
“It’s started a lot of more conversations than I would have probably had already, just by doing something like this. So, the only bad part is I don’t know what to do next,” said Terryberry.
Students said it was an experience they will never forget.
“Well, it was definitely a surprise because someone ran out on the soccer field with a flag. And then we saw it was a skydiving flag,” said senior Addison Parrish.
“We had no idea. it was so it was kind of like an Olympic team. We had like, this big ceremony at the end, and he just didn’t really say anything about it. So, when we looked up into the sky was pretty crazy that he was right there,” said Erin Robarge, also a senior.