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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 1980)
% if A pair of young onlookers watch the com petition during last weekend’s kite-flying contest sponsored by the College Station Parks and Recreation Department. \ Kite instructions by Susan Edens by Gail Weatherly Battalion Reporter Ironically, the highest flying kite in the kite-flying contest Saturday came not from the inventive mind of one of the contestants, but from a Safeway store. And one kite-flying winner was not even human. A puppy named Lincoln won third place in the smal lest kite category for a small paper kite he had around his neck. So the day went as seventeen kite flyers, ranging in age from 2 years old to 55, battled destructive winds to participate in the College Station Parks and Recreation De partment kite-flying contest. Some of the assorted kites crum pled under the pressure of the high winds and slowly drifted to the ground. Others pulled hard enough to snap the strings holding them and flew into trees and over houses. A pink box kite went rolling across the field next to the A&M Consolidated High School, eluding the owner who was chasing it. But some of the kites exhibited the skill and care that had been put into them. Sally Lesher’s blue and yellow butterfly kite, which won first place for best decorated kite in the senior division (16 and over), looked intri cate and fragile, but flew like it was meant for 30-mile-an-hour winds. The kite was made in two even ings, Lesher said, out of the same paper used to make model air planes and balsa wood. The wood had to be put in boiling water, she said, to bend to the design that she and her husband, Ron, got out of the encyclopedia. They also entered the kite that won first place for smallest kite, flown by Lisa Ramirez since Ron Lesher had to go back to work. Other categories were strongest- pulling kite and most active kite with a junior and senior division, largest kite, smallest kite, highest kite, and oldest and youngest kite flyer. One kite was patented by the flyer’s grandfather. Three-year-old Matthew Beachy, 3, was flying a red triangle kite that his grandfather built in the 1950s, and he won sev eral awards with the kite. The first place largest home-built kite was flown by Lowell Knox and was made of a large red-checked gingham cloth with a yellow- checked fin. The smallest kite in the contest, winning second because it had trouble flying the full minute re quired, was about one inch across, made out of toothpicks and pink tis sue paper. Three small strings made up a tail, and the owners were discus sing that it might not be flying be cause of too much tail. All first place winners won T- shirts, and second and third place winners won ribbons. The three judges, Susan Edens, David Fain and Jana Brewster made quick decisions on the win ners. The winners were announced by Marci Rodgers, recreation su perintendent for the College Station Parks and Recreation Department. Rodgers, in the spirit of having a good time, gave out a few extra T- shirts to young on-lookers who re ceived them with as much enthu siasm as if they had been a gold trophy. Photos by Ed Cunnius Drawings by Doug Graham # One contestant’s entry at the kite-flying contest last weekend was called the Killer Bee. Two-year-old Rebecca Knox, the youngest kite-flyer last weekend, tries her luck in last Saturday’s competition, while her mother Jean Knox lends a hand. Rebecca’s father, Lowell Knox, won first place for the largest kite at 5 feet long, second place for it being home-built and third place for it being the most active.