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Grandma stays young by taking a dive
Posted: 05.19.2012 at 10:50 PM
Kristen Aguirre

Kristen Aguirre is a KHQA This Morning Live Anchor for KHQA.

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80-year-old Marilyn Wittler goes skydiving with grandchildren.  / Kristen Aguirre
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HANNIBAL, MO. -- How adventurous is your grandmother?

For one local grandma, there's no jump she won't take to get a thrill or to spend time with her grandkids.

"They said what fun it was going to be and I said 'you know, that's something I've always wanted to do,'" Marilyn Wittler said. "Well, I should have kept my mouth shut because they haven't let me alone since."

Marilyn is 80-years-old, but that didn't stop her grandkids from pushing her to check skydiving off her bucket list.

"We mentioned something to her about it and we kind of wrote it off, but then my mom mentioned something to her about actually doing it, and then she said she would. So we kind of bugged her about it," Aaron Wittler, Marilyn's grandson said.

"It's pretty exciting," Hilary Wittler, Marilyn's granddaughter said. "I didn't think she would actually want to go. She's not the grandma that I thought would want to go skydiving, but she surprised us all."

Even the owner of Rapid Descent, Mike Barron, was surprised to see Marilyn sign up to skydive. To date, she's the only 80-year-old grandma he's ever seen take the jump.

"Most of the participants we get are anywhere from college age to forties, fifties aged folks, so having an elderly person come out, that's really cool," Barron said.

But for Marilyn, she says age is just a number and being adventurous keeps her young.

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