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Not sure which forum this should go in, but Kevin Venell (BASE 58) from south of Houston, passed away over the weekend from something non-jump related. He was a first generation BASE jumper who pioneered a lot of first jumps, like jumping from a moving train into a gorge at 50 mph, and a lot of incredible building jumps from Houston's tallest buildings. He will be sorely missed.

really sorry to hear this. I didn't know Kevin well. I first met Kevin at Zhills before I or he (I think) were base-jumping, and I was quite inexperienced. We talked about doing crw with starlite rounds... I next saw him in 84 at bridge day when he was one of the instructors (Phil Smith was in charge that year) and had a great time talking to him about base. I remember him telling me about the train jumps and about trying to jump the St Louis arch. Don't remember now if he ever did actually get to do the arch, I remember him saying there were problems getting out up top..

I'm going to hazard a guess that Kevin was younger than me. I really looked up to him. Real sorry to hear it.

Sorry to hear. He was certainly among the pioneers.

That really sucks. I did starlite CRW with Kevin, until he went and got a square. He was always happy when jumping.

Wendy P.

Too bad the trading card with Kevin had several mistakes. He was BASE 58, not 60. He started BASE jumping in 1983 not 87. The Vision sport trading card company created the trading cards for extreme sports in coordination with Phil Smith, BASE 1. Smitty invited myself, Kevin and Bill Legg to be on the cards, but the company obviously didn't pay much attention to detail on the wording. At least we all got 300 cards each and a great steak and stone crab dinner out of the deal.
Rick
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