Above: USPA New England Regional Director and Competition Committee Chair Jim Rees presents Tamara Koyn with the USPA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service. Photo by David Cherry.
In 1985, before freestyle skydiving had a name, Tamara Koyn, D-10940, was dancing in the skies over the Greater St. Louis Parachute Club in Greenville, Illinois. She loved performing flips, tricks and even the splits in the sky. Koyn reflects, “I didn’t have a name for it. The other jumpers wondered ‘what the heck is she doing on those solo jumps?’ It wasn’t a thing at the time.”
The term freestyle was coined a couple of years later, when Norman Kent released “From Wings Came Flight,” the groundbreaking film introducing the discipline. In 1990, freestyle saw its first competition. Freestyle did not become a competitive discipline by chance. It was driven by passionate athletes such as Koyn, who pushed freestyle into the spotlight with educational material including articles like “Beginning Freestyle” (Parachutist, September 1988) and her book series “Freestyle Notes.”
Koyn proceeded to compete in freestyle for years, and also became a judge, a hat she still wears today. She holds national and international judge ratings in artistic events, canopy formation, wingsuiting and formation skydiving, and is a USPA Judge Examiner for Artistic Events. Behind the scenes, she has long served as both the USPA and the International Skydiving Commission Competition Librarian, organizing historical data, scores and videos from USPA Nationals and Collegiate Nationals, and Fédération Aéronautique Internationale World Championships and World Cups. During her journey in the discipline, she wrote many informative articles for publication and still makes her educational content available in order to support USPA, the ISC and, most importantly, the competitors.
On October 30, at the USPA Nationals at Skydive Arizona in Eloy, USPA New England Regional Director and Competition Committee Chair Jim Rees presented Koyn with the USPA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service. Rees said, “During the USPA board meeting in March when we voted on this award, a USPA member, Braden Roseborough, sent me a message expressing his support and gratitude for [Koyn]’s SkySurfing Quincy Seminars from 1999 that are free to read from her website. This is one of dozens of such articles that people still reference today as relevant and helpful. I think that gives us a glimpse into the depth of her impact, not just on the sport as a whole, but on the artistic flying community in particular.” Shortly before the freestyle medal ceremony, to a standing ovation with whistles and cheers, Rees presented her with the award—which reads, “For her dedication, passion and selflessness as a pioneering freestyle skydiver and as a multi-discipline national and international judge, and for her meticulous organization while acting as competition librarian for USPA and the International Skydiving Commission.”
Accepting the award, Koyn said, “Thank you, it’s a great honor to receive this award, and it’s an honor that it takes place in 2025, the 40th anniversary of when I did my first freestyle jumps in 1985, before freestyle even had a name. I want to thank my family for supporting me as I got started in skydiving and for continuing their support as I continued with freestyle and grew and expanded in artistic events and grew into other events and judging.”
Koyn then asked the freestyle teams to stand up, which they did, to a round of applause. She also asked the panel of freestyle judges to stand up, to further applause. Reflecting that this year's Nationals marked the 35th anniversary of competitive freestyle, Koyn remarked, “It’s a great pleasure that I was the chief judge for artistic events this year. I thank you for the honor of this award.”
Before freestyle even had a name, Koyn was defining it. From those pivotal jumps in 1985 to her years of service behind the scenes, she has undeniably shaped artistic skydiving and helped preserve its history. The USPA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service, awarded a maximum of three times each year, honors members whose sustained commitment helps shape the sport’s future. Few exemplify that mission more completely than Tamara Koyn.