Ronald Samac Obituary

Ronald Samac attended Black River High School in Sullivan, OH. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Ronald Samac.

Graduation Year	Class of 1990
Date of Passing	Jul 04, 2005
About	By SEUNG MIN KIM Published July 7, 2005\|Updated Aug. 25, 2005 Advertisement Whenever Skydive City was open, Ron Samac was there. A regular at the parachuting hot spot in Zephyrhills, Samac would jump multiple times a day. While not in the sky, the Wesley Chapel resident would be with friends on the ground, sharing tips, encouragement, and his infectious grin. Friends and fellow skydivers on Wednesday recalled Samac, who died in a skydiving accident in New Jersey earlier this week, as an unselfish man and a huge fan of practical jokes. He would steal shoes and throw them up on buildings _ and he would find ways for others to take the heat. One year on Halloween, he dressed up as the pro wrestler Mr. T, and his friends barely recognized him. "He always had a good smile and loved to laugh," said friend and Tampa resident Mark Killen, who met Samac through skydiving about five years ago. "There was always good badgering back and forth, but he was never mean-spirited." In a jump near Monroe Township, N.J., on Monday, the parachutes of Samac and girlfriend Sara Loshe became intertwined in the air after a collision at about 150 feet above the ground. Both veteran jumpers _ Loshe, with 1,000 jumps under her belt and Samac with almost 2,000 _ were declared dead at the scene. Samac was 33; Loshe was 23. In a tribute to the avid skydiver, Skydive City is planning a memorial jump in Samac's honor Saturday in Zephyrhills. Details have yet to be finalized, said Skydive City office manager Carrie Bramlett. "He was fun," Bramlett said. "Definitely very happy, very fun, and made everyone feel good. He would always do little things to get you to giggle." When the skydiving season would begin to lag in Florida as the summer approached, Samac would usually trek north, this time to New Jersey, where girlfriend Loshe was. The two hadn't dated for long, but friends already knew she was perfect for Samac. Loshe essentially was the female version of Samac, Bramlett said. "The two were a perfect match," she said. "She was beautiful. A beautiful smile, a beautiful heart; she was great." Both loved to skydive and travel. Samac had planned to return to Wesley Chapel after he finished his summer contract work as an X-ray technician, but his and Loshe's desire to travel thwarted those plans, Bramlett said. "They wanted to travel all over the country and all over the world, I'm sure," she said. "As long as it was somewhere with a drop zone." While not soaring in the skies above Zephyrhills, Samac was in the hockey rink, passing the puck and zipping through the neutral zone as a center for his intramural team, Team High Stick, on Thursday nights in Brandon. "He wasn't selfish with the puck," Killen said. "Sometimes, it would've been nicer if he were more selfish because I wish he would have taken the shot." Samac's dedication to his hockey teammates also survived a puck in his eye, leaving him with a nice shiner and a cut on his lip one year during a championship game, Killen said. But for Samac, leaving the team and going to the hospital wasn't an option. He wanted to be at the arena, be with his teammates and get his photo taken with the Stanley Keg, the championship trophy for the intramural league, Killen said. Authorities have not yet closed the investigation into the Independence Day accident, but they are characterizing it as an accident attributable to human mistakes, not equipment malfunction. Skydivers are instructed to jump in a particular direction once they leave the plane, but in this accident, one of the divers went the wrong way, causing the collision, Monroe Township Police Lt. Richard Livingston said. Meanwhile, officials from the Federal Aviation Association, which is also involved in the investigation, have not reached a conclusion on the cause of the accident, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The FAA has questioned witnesses, people who had inspected the chutes before the collision, and the operator of Freefall Adventures, the school that owned the plane from which Loshe and Samac jumped. Now in the midst of compiling a final report, the FAA is expected to complete the investigation in a week, Peters said. Samac's friends in Florida view the tragedy as an isolated collision and shake off any fear that a similar incident could happen to them. The statistics are on their side. The United States Parachute Association reported 21 fatalities last year, the lowest since they began tracking deaths in 1992. "None of us are afraid," Bramlett said. "It was a freak accident."
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