%
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.