Wednesday, October 15, 1997
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 5
Students falling for bungee jump
The 125-foot leap runs through Sunday at Johnny's Tavern
By Ann Premer
apremer@kansan
Kansas staff writer
Bombs away. For the second consecutive year, Johnny's Tavern will have bungee jumping in its parking lot. Bungee jumping will be available tomorrow through Sunday.
The 125-foot jump costs $25. Jumpers dive from a basket suspended from a machine resembling a crane. An giant air mattress rests below the jumper for safety reasons, said Rick Renfro, a partner owner at Johnny's Tavern, 401 N. Second St.
"It's high," he said. "I won't go up in the basket myself."
Renfro said he had bungee jumped before off of a 225-foot bridge in New Zealand.
"I swore that I would never do that again," Renfro said.
A company named Bungee Boys will operate the jumn.
Renfro said that 400 people jumped last year and probably half of those jumpers were KU students.
Sean Haydock, KU graduate and Johnny's employee, said stupidity was the reason he jumped last year.
"I'd never done it before, and I probably won't do it ever again," he said.
Haydock said, with a laugh, that he had reservations about jumping when he was looking down from 125 feet but that the ride operator threatened to push him out. He said that if a jumper chickened out, the ride operators probably would bring him back down.
Haydock said that the jump felt like the first drop on a roller coaster compounded 10 times.
He said that there were age and weight restrictions on jumpers and that jumpers could not be intoxicated.
"They can't be loaded," Haydock said. "That would be a nasty mess."
The bungee jump will be open from 4 p.m. to midnight tomorrow and Friday, from noon until midnight Saturday and from 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday.
Sneak Preview
University of Kansas students watch live interviews with the director and actors of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" via satellite from the University of California at Los Angeles. More than 500 students attended the sneak preview last night at the Kansas Union. The preview, sponsored Student Union Activities, involved about 25 colleges across the country. Photo by Lynn Kaleender/KANSAN
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