Risk-taking retiree hopes to make Guinness record book

Sunday, July 2, 2000 | 3:10 a.m.

Jim Guyer, who took up skydiving and has competed in triathlons since retiring 14 years ago, is now into BASE jumping -parachuting from fixed objects.

BASE is an acronym for Building, Antenna, Span and Earth.

Guyer wants to complete jumps off all four types of objects and make the Guinness Book as the oldest person to complete the feat. The makers of the nutritional drink Ensure will furnish Guyer with a parachute and a jumpsuit featuring the Ensure logo.

Later this month, Guyer will leave his Henderson County home for Norway, where he plans to climb 3,000 feet to the top of a mountain, then jump off.

He then plans to jump off the 876-foot-high New River Bridge in West Virginia in October.

Guyer admits that the building and antenna jumps will be a little trickier. In the United States, owners of tall structures typically don't allow access to BASE jumpers.

Guyer says he is working with a Las Vegas promoter to try to set up a legal jump from the top of a casino. But he doesn't shy away from the possibility of arrest.

"At this stage of my life, it would be fun to act like a junior high school kid again," he said.

Guyer's wife, Judy, supports her husband's daredevil lifestyle.

"I think he has the liberty now to pursue risky things because the kids are grown and everybody's taken care of," she said. "He's followed all the rules, all the time, and now it's his turn."