Background
Powers was born to Edward Lee and Florence Pauline Powers in Landrum, South Carolina, on July 9, 1947. He grew up in Landrum, which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains area near the border with North Carolina.
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Kenny Powers
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Career
After high school, he joined the Navy and served as a barber in the Navy according to his Doctor of Divinity 214. He died at the Hampton Veterans Center in Hampton, Virginia on February 28, 2009. He is best known today for his unsuccessful October 1979 attempt to jump the Saint Lawrence River in a rocket-powered Lincoln, where he took the place of stuntman Ken Carter.
He suffered significant injuries including a broken back, but survived.
Carter"s years of planning for the "Superjump", and Powers failed attempt were the subject of a 1981 documentary called The Devil at Your Heels, directed by Robert Fortier and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Powers was actually substituted at the last minute for Carter, without Carter"s knowledge, because the jump"s backers feared Carter had decided the jump would not work.
This is not an accurate account of why Powers was substituted for Carter. The backers were concerned about Carter"s health.
Carter still wanted to do the jump.
This is the version told to Beverly Plumley Powers by Kenny Powers and Donna Ray Powers. lieutenant is also the account on the official documentary of the jump. Video of the stunt also appeared on the American television show That"s Incredible!, as well as the 1981 film Faces of Death World War II A four-minute clip of the stunt taken from Faces of Death II was uploaded to YouTube in 2006, causing renewed popularity.
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Born
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Died
February 28, 2009 (aged 61) -
Nationality
American