A Peachtree City couple watched

proudly last weekend as their son made history on the other side of the

world.

Make that the top of the world,

more than five and a half miles above sea level..

Jesse Rickert reached the summit

of Mt. Everest Friday, the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary's first

climb, and concluded a grueling series of events for the "Global

Extremes" competition on the Outdoor Life Network.

Among those following this

unique reality TV series were Tom and Jan Rickert, Jesse's parents and

residents of Peachtree City for 31 years. Jesse, 30, attended elementary

school in Peachtree City and graduated from Woodward Academy before heading

west and attending college in Gunnison, Colo., where he now lives with

his wife and child.

An outdoor recreation major

in college, he has worked as a guide and competed in a number of outdoor

endurance events. His achievements include a win in the Pikes Peak Marathon.

His latest quest began last

summer when OLN-TV solicited applications for "Global Extremes."

He was one of 50 selected out of the hundreds who applied.

Various competitions in Utah

and Colorado narrowed the field to 12, and more events in such exotic

locales as South Africa, Costa Rica and Iceland produced five finalists,

each of whom won $50,000 in cash, a Toyota Forerunner and an all-expense-paid

trip to Mt. Everest (worth about $60,000). Rickert and the other four

finalists reached the base of Mt. Everest in early April.

After one finalist dropped

out, the four remaining competitors participated in a rescue at the 27,000-foot

base camp, Tom said, and then had to retreat to 19,000 feet, where two

other participants dropped out. That left Jesse and one other climber,

along with a cameraman and two Sherpa guides, to go for the summit.

This is the second Everest

summit with a Fayette County connection. Hugh Morton reached the top in

1992, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and he may have been

the first Georgian to do so.

Jesse is expected back in the

United States Sunday.

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