Former President Bush will skydive to mark birthday

HOUSTON -- More than 5,000 people were expected to help former President George H.W. Bush celebrate his 80th birthday Saturday, part of a weekend of events to be topped with a skydive today.

The skydive will be "very safe. It will be a thrill for me," Bush said at a luncheon in his honor Saturday at the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Bush has made four parachute jumps in his life -- the first as a Navy pilot shot down over the Pacific during World War II. He has made the other jumps since leaving the White House more than a decade ago.

On Saturday night, President George W. Bush will be among the political leaders and other guests expected at his father's birthday gala at Houston's Minute Maid Park. Larry King, Dennis Miller and Bo Derek were among the celebrities expected to attend.

The party serves as a fund raiser for the George Bush Forty-One Endowment, which is trying to raise $30 million to support his presidential library, the cancer center and his Points of Light Foundation.

Officials at M.D. Anderson thanked Bush and his wife, Barbara, for their fund-raising efforts on behalf of the cancer center by unveiling the Robin Bush Child and Adolescent Clinic. The facility was named for the Bushes' 3-year-old daughter, who died from leukemia in 1953.

The George and Barbara Bush Endowment for Innovative Cancer Research at M.D. Anderson has raised more than $50 million since its founding in 1998.

The elder Bush intends to make his parachute jump Sunday over Texas A&M University in College Station, the home of his presidential library and museum.