Ruby McNally Celebrates 100th Birthday With Skydive Over Davis

Most people hit 100 and want a soft chair, a slice of cake, and a quiet afternoon. Ruby McNally wanted an airplane. On August 13, 2026, the Roseville, California woman turned a full century old and marked it the same way she has marked her biggest birthdays for the last 20 years, by jumping out of a plane thousands of feet above the ground. Before the jump, she looked at her instructor and said six words: "Let's go, let's do it!" No hesitation. No speech. Just go.

She did a tandem skydive at Skydance Skydiving in Davis, a town not far from her home. Family and friends came along for the ride, and a whole crowd of relatives stayed on the ground with their necks craned up, cheering when she floated back down and touched grass. She landed safe. She landed grinning. And she was already talking about doing it again.

It started as a dare she never expected to keep

Ruby's skydiving habit began at 80, and it was not her idea. Her grandson challenged her to try it, figuring Grandma would laugh it off. She said yes, mostly as a joke. "My grandson challenged me and, jokingly, I said yes, never expecting him to hold me to it," she told reporters. He held her to it. She jumped. And instead of calling it a one-time stunt, she turned it into a rule for herself. Ten years later, at 90, she went up again. Before that second jump she made another promise, out loud, that she would be back at 100.

Her family knew better than to argue. "At 100, you learn you're not talking her out of anything," her daughter Sharon McNally said. That's the kind of line that sounds like a joke until you watch a 100-year-old woman strap into a harness and actually do it. Sharon wasn't exaggerating. Ruby had a plan and a promise, and once she decides something, the conversation is over.

The neighbor who kept a 10-year promise

One of the best parts of this whole story has nothing to do with Ruby's age. It's about a guy named Rick Kelly, her longtime neighbor. Rick jumped with Ruby when she turned 90. Standing there a decade ago, he told her that if they were both still around when she hit 100, he'd jump with her again. That's an easy thing to say. People say stuff like that all the time and forget it by dinner.

Rick did not forget. Ten years passed, Ruby reached 100, and her neighbor showed up and climbed into the plane right alongside her. He kept the promise, exactly as he'd made it. Think about how rare that is. Most of us can't get a friend to commit to brunch, and this man committed to leaping out of an aircraft with a centenarian a full 10 years in advance. That's a good neighbor. That might be the best neighbor in America.

Six people jumped with her, including her grandkids

Ruby didn't go up alone. Six family members and friends jumped with her, and several of them were her own grandchildren. That's what turned this from a solo bucket-list moment into a full family event, three generations sharing the same sky on the same afternoon. Her tandem partner was Chris Peterson, a professional instructor with the drop zone, so Ruby was strapped to someone who does this for a living. Everybody else got their own ride down too.

Her granddaughter April Bartok summed up the feeling better than anyone. "There's not that many other people on planet Earth that can say, Hey, I'm going skydiving with Grandma that's 100," she said after landing. She's right. Run the math on how many living 100-year-olds there are, then narrow it down to the ones willing to freefall, then narrow it down again to the ones whose grandkids are willing to go with them. You're left with a very short list, and Ruby is at the top of it. You can see the family reactions in the footage from the drop zone, and the joy is not fake.

She thinks being scared is a waste of time

Ask Ruby about the fear and she basically shrugs at you. "Why would you be scared? There's nothing to be scared of," she said. And she's got a theory about worry that's honestly worth writing on a sticky note. "If you sit and worry about it, then you're going to talk yourself out of it," she said. That's how a lot of good ideas die. Not from bad luck, but from sitting around and thinking too hard until the moment passes. Ruby just doesn't give the fear enough room to grow.

Her kids apparently give her a hard time about it. She says they joke, "Why don't you act your age?" Her comeback is perfect. "That's no fun. So it keeps life exciting. And you know, that's what keeps you going. If you're sitting in a chair, life is over." She said something almost identical after the landing, telling a national news crew, "If you slow down, life is over. So you just keep on keeping on and enjoying life." She does not feel 100. By her own account, she doesn't even think about it.

The story went from a small California town to the whole world

A Sacramento NBC station broke the story first, and from there it spread fast. CNN Wire picked it up and pushed it out to affiliates across the country. CBS ran a national video segment. Then it jumped the ocean, with a UK outlet carrying the story for readers overseas. Within a couple of days, a woman from Roseville was a name people recognized on multiple continents.

It's not hard to see why. There's a lot of heavy news out there, and every so often a story comes along that asks nothing of you except to feel good for two minutes. A great-grandmother in a jumpsuit, telling her kids to stop nagging her about acting her age, floating down over the California farmland with her grandkids. That's the kind of thing that cuts through a bad news week. People shared it because it made them smile, plain and simple.

She's already planning the jump at 110

Here's the thing about Ruby's decade-by-decade schedule. She might be done waiting a full 10 years between jumps. After the landing, her granddaughter floated a new idea, why not make this an annual thing instead of once a decade? Ruby seemed open to it. And when a reporter asked the obvious follow-up, whether she'd skydive again at 110, she didn't dodge. "I'm aiming for it," she said.

She also left the door cracked in a quieter way. "And if God keeps me going, then we'll just talk about it later. I'm not giving up yet," she said after touching down. That's a woman with plans. Most people her age are counting on rest. Ruby is counting on another plane ride, and she wants the younger generations in her family to keep the tradition alive long after she's out of jumps. You can watch her whole day play out in the birthday video, and it's a lot of fun.

The whole thing works because Ruby isn't performing bravery. She really seems to believe there's nothing to be afraid of, that the fear is optional, that the chair is the actual danger. You can jump out of a plane at 100 or you can not, but either way, her point stands. Sitting still and waiting is its own kind of choice, and it's the one she refuses to make. She'd rather be up in the air with her family, six of them scattered across the sky, a neighbor keeping a 10-year-old promise, and a whole crowd on the ground yelling her name. At 100, she got exactly that. And she's aiming for 110.