Glamour and guts, brains and beauty, once the world's youngest 707 captain ever,
supermodel Terri Jones-Thayer is back in the spotlight!
SWEET.
Odd as
the word may seem today, sweet, gentle and modest are what come to mind
when you meet Terri Jones-Thayer. And if her face-the model "diamond" cut,
with high cheekbones, punctuated by slate-green eyes and a shy smile-is
familiar, that's probably because you've seen it countless times. And if
you haven't, you will.Terri, Revlon's perfumed Charlie girl of yore, is more than a supermodel. The Ocala housewife and mother of two is an accomplished entrepreneur, airplane pilot, businesswoman, adventurer and idea machine. And, as owner of the world's longest private runway on 550 pristine acres just 10 minutes from downtown Ocala, she and husband Jeremy Thayer are building an exclusive aviation community.
The first to buy into the project, with his Boeing 707, is John Travolta. But that's getting ahead of the clock. There's plenty of guts and gumption behind the glamour, and at age 40-although few would wager she's a day past 25-there's already a best-selling autobiography waiting to be written.
Terri Thayer measures her life in five-year cycles.
Or, perhaps, that's how life has played out for her so far. "A lot has
happened, but nothing has changed in me," she says softly. "I'm still the
simple country girl who grew up without luxuries in a rural area outside
Tampa and who used to ride her horse bareback-because we couldn't afford a
saddle-three miles to visit her girlfriend."Poised, gracious and unpretentious, she recalls, a bit wistfully, about never having lived a real childhood. "I remember my mother telling me I was focused and responsible since the day I could talk," and, at age 7, when her father, an FBI agent passed away, she became even more so. It didn't take too much encouragement from her mother-Ocala resident and former Miss Kentucky, Patricia Price-for Terri to be interested in and winning beauty pageants.
JC Penney catalogs, Pepsi billboards, jet skis, soap
operas. Barely 17, Terri was in the spotlight just about everywhere.
The modeling agency she started when she was 15 and sold two years later continues to flourish. In her mid-teens, she was picked by Nautilus owner Arthur Jones to be the chief spokesperson and the face behind his multinational fitness equipment company. At age 18, she became Mrs. Jones.
"We were based in Lake Helen, where it was really busy with our TV station and everything corporate and bustling," she recalls. In 1980, the Joneses bought 80 acres with a Vanderbilt villa near Ocala as their quiet, weekend retreat. In 1986, Revlon named Terri Jones its perfect Charlie girl. Her promotion of the perfume-targeting successful, ambitious, young professional women-was a hit and propelled Terri deeper into the jet set world of glamour.
However, the
young model had her heart set on jets, rather than jet-setting, and, with
her husband's support and her own penchant for adventure and never passing
up opportunity, got her pilot's license. There was no looking back. She
progressed up the aviation ladder, through turbo jets and fighter planes,
and became the youngest person ever to have a captain's rating on a Boeing
707. Four bars, left seat, Capt. Terri Jones É looking absolutely smashing
in her uniform.She went on to set the L.A.-to-Jacksonville flight record, in her Cheyenne 400 LS prop jet, and was teamed with astronaut Chuck Yeager on ABC's "Good Morning America" as he set out to beat the L.A.-New York flight record in a similar propjet. As it turned out, Yeager took along a co-pilot. Terri Jones flew solo. "Being a girl and being so young," she reasoned, "if I took a co-pilot I might be accused of not flying the airplane, and I wanted to prove that I could!"
While
the Korean War-era jet fighter trainer T-33 remains Terri's favorite plane
for pure adventure, and the one in which she has given aerobatics
demonstrations in air shows, being a licensed 707 captain was just going
half way. So she enrolled at Pan Am's flight school and emerged ready to
command the jumbo of the skies, the 747.THE JUMBO appellation would be prophetic. Captain Jones prepared to crack the around-the-world 747 record in 40 hours, as Revlon's "Charlie Ambassador to the World" (to benefit the Just Say No Foundation to combat drug abuse).
As the publicity-from Johnny Carson to the CBS News and glossy magazines-built up, just days before her departure from her Ocala runway, a Pan Am pilot beat her to it. "There was so much publicity about me and the trip that people still believe I own the world record," she recalls, laughing. "I've seen so much of the world that I want to see and do more." One of these days, it will be back to her favorite, New Zealand ("É so spectacularly beautiful, so safe, so clean, so friendly!")
Her jumbo
experience took her instead to Zimbabwe on a mission of mercy. Culling
wildlife herds and drought was taking its toll, and the Joneses air-dashed
to Africa and flew back with 68 elephants, zebras, a gorilla, the world's
largest known crocodile. Their quiet Ocala retreat was expanded and named
Jumbolair, a haven for orphaned and rescued African wildlife (most now
live in zoos across America).In 1991, the Joneses were amicably divorced.
Terri Jones married entrepreneur Jeremy Thayer, whose business mined and exported precious stones from Sri Lanka, and set up one of Sarasota's most exclusive custom-jewelry stores. Terri and Jeremy Thayer began focusing on the future. And Ocala was it.
The
enlarged and elegant villa at Jumbolair serves as an exclusive inn, now
certainly one of the region's most unique accommodations. "It's luxurious
and cozy," Terri understates as she walks the visitor through the inn.
Each suite is named after a favorite animal. "This one is the Bollero,"
she says. "I named it after the horse my friend (actress Bo Derek) gave me
as a gift."On of the first Sunday of every month, a fly-in brunch for airplane buffs has become a regular fixture.
More prime acreage has been added to the property, which is gently undulating and fringed with stately oaks. "It's a world all its own!" Terri Thayer says, surveying the horses lazing in the balmy winter sun. "Yet, it's exciting, with people flying in from all over. Just this morning, two guests took off in their fighter jets. The runway is wide enough for both to take off side by side. They headed east, then streaked back, did a roll, and pulled into the sky!"
Where will the next five years see her? "Right here," she says, eyes lighting up, and sweeping a hand over the Thayer estate. "Jeremy and I know our life is just beginning."
> NEXT MONTH: Why the world's waking up to what's happening at Ocala's Jumbolair.
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