Pete Luter’s life was about jumping, friends recalled today.

“He left this world doing what he loved and cherished,” said longtime friend J.B. Smith, who was with Luter when he formed a skydiving club in Roanoke Rapids around 1965.

Smith and Jessie Wray were pilots for Luter and the club he formed. “It was a big jump club,” Smith recalled in an interview. “Pete Luter was the founder. He was a dedicated jumper. His whole life centered around jumping and he was one of the best there’s ever been.”

On Friday Luter died after his parachute came out spinning in Zephyrhills, Florida. Officials of Skydive City where Luter made the jump said it appeared he was unconscious and by the time he regained consciousness to make a cutaway and pull his reserve chute he was approximately 300 feet from the ground, too little altitude for it to work.

“It shocked me. I couldn’t believe it,” Smith said.

While jumping was his passion, Smith said Luter was good at everything he tried. “He was on the top of the list. You couldn’t ask for a better person.”

He would help raise money for charitable events in the community and could be seen every Christmas parade dressed as a clown riding a high wheel bike. “I was over there last night and he’s got a clown that looks just like him. Pete Luter was a chimney sweep and cleaned the chimneys of the White House.”

Smith recalls Luter’s sense of humor, especially the time he was flying him for a jump and Luter pulled the key from the airplane’s ignition. “‘I’ll see you on the ground,’” Smith recalled his friend saying, the key in his hand as parachuted to the ground. “After that I had plenty of keys.”

That’s one thing not many people realized about Luter, Smith said. “Pete was a heck of a good pilot. We came along at the right time for everything. He really enjoyed life.”

Wray recalls Luter was passionate about flying and skydiving. “He loved to be around the airport. He read up on skydiving and trained himself. When I started flying he helped me a whole lot.”

When Wray worked at the Champion paper mill, Luter worked under him and Wray found him to be a quick learner. “He could rise to the occasion in anything he wanted to do. He’d get mad but he didn’t carry a grudge.”

Luter was a mechanical person, Wray said. “When he worked at the mill if there was a certain job, most times I had my choice of who I would get to help and I always chose Pete. He was a knowledgeable person.”

Wray never jumped but he and Smith would fly their friend so he could jump. “It’s something that’s addictive,” he said of skydiving. “I was really afraid to. I would never let anything control me. I’ve seen a lot of skydivers but not Pete go hungry to save that dollar so they could go up.”

Luter’s nephew, Carlton Miles, remembers when Luter first began dating his aunt. “He had a Volkswagen and always kept a parachute in the back seat. Being a child I was always looking at it and he told me don’t ever pull the ripcord.”

To get his nephew’s mind off the parachute Luter would tell him the VW had autopilot and drive the VW hands off the wheel, the car hugging the yellow line.

“He was a unique person in so many different ways,” Miles said. “He was a steward of the earth.”

Miles, who did five jumps with his uncle when he was 16, recalls throwing a bottle cap from the vent of the car. “He told me if everyone did that we’d have trash everywhere. I was always proud to call him my uncle.”

Luter was always positive, Miles said. “He never mentioned an enemy. He always brought out the good in people.”

The family estimates Luter logged more than 4,000 jumps.

For Miles, his relationship with his uncle went beyond jumping. “He always taught me to follow your dreams. If you really like doing something pursue it.”