Melissa Lowe began soaring through the sky when she was a little girl and has not stopped since. A third-generation skydiver and a 23-time world record holder, Lowe is based in Montrose, Colorado, and uses her platform to speak on greater issues going on in the world today.

Skydiving is not an average sport taken up by many kids. Lowe grew up in a family that thought of jumping out of the sky as we think of kicking a soccer ball.

“My grandfather started in World War II as an 82nd airborne paratrooper and then when he got out, my uncle and my dad started sport-parachute jumping, and then I started when I was old enough,” Lowe says.

In case you were wondering, “old enough” defined by Lowe is five years old. She started off tandem skydiving, which includes another, usually more experienced, diver. Once she was 16 years old, Lowe embarked on solo jumps.

With modern technology and advanced wind tunnels, indoor skydiving has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. Kids as young as three years old can even jump, too.

“There are a lot of different avenues you can go within the sport; there are a lot of different disciplines,” explains Lowe.

There is the traditional belly-to-earth jump, also known as formation skydiving. Vertical flying, Lowe explains, is when a diver’s head is either upwards or downwards facing to the earth. And, there is also canopy jumping, which focuses on parachute skills.

When Lowe trains for her solo jumps, she focuses mainly on free fall jumps, but when she isn’t training for solo jumps she is working with a team of other talented skydivers called Highlight.

“We are a brand-new team. We are less than a year old, and we were brought together as an evolution of the Women’s Skydiving Network,” Lowe says.

Lowe explains women in skydiving are underrepresented in the sport, and the Women’s Skydiving Network helps support groups like Highlight.

“We will get together and we choreograph a show, so we’ll jump together and maybe two of us will jump streamers and we’ll fly out parachutes together, so it looks really amazing,” she adds.

Highlight is a skydiving team composed of 11 women, who collectively have made close to 200,000 jumps. Each one of them has their own unique set of skills and are all passionate about the sport. The women on the team have been traveling across the country doing demonstration jumps, in which they dive to represent a variety of different movements.

Lowe says, “This year, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which is the women’s right to vote.”

While many things have been slowed down by COVID-19, Melissa and her team have been able to keep doing what they love to do most. They are continuing to train, while maintaining regulated safety precautions and performing as many demonstration jumps as possible.

“Our mission is to inspire women to live brave, bold lives,” Lowe says.

Originally published in the Fall 2020 issue of SPOKE+BLOSSOM

Jumping From Great Heights With Melissa Lowe