08/21/2010 - Flying Colors Kite Festival

Sat, August 21, 11am – 4pm

Valley View Middle School, 8900 Portland Ave S, Bloomington, MN 55420 (map)

Flying Colors is the annual summer kite festival of the Minnesota Kite Society (MKS). Activities include a kids kite making workshop, a kids kite fly, kids kite flying contests, a rokkaku battle, demonstration kite flying, open flying for all and flying large kites.

Event is FREE.

Food and refreshments to be available.

Directions: Play Fields are located on NW corner of 90th Street and Portland Avenue South. From I-494 in Bloomington, exit at Portland Avenue. Go south about 1-1/2 miles to 90th Street. The field is on the northwest corner of the intersection.

Contact Festival Chair John Kaulbars at 952-854-0985 or email jskaulbars@gmail.com

Thank you to everyone that came to Flying Colors! It was a beautiful sunny, summer day. We had some great friends come from Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

The kids kite making was a big hit and Dave Herzig again put on a great workshop. Paul Fieber and Ed Grys from Wisconsin did a glider drop that was really cool. They flew up the Bucky Badger kite and dropped little gliders which filled the air. Each kid got to keep a glider and those that found a glider with a number on it received a prize.

The wind was extremely light all day. We had short periods of light wind but nothing we could keep up for a long time.

The bigger show kites weren't able to fly.

Ron Pegg was able to do a stunt kite demo later in the afternoon. Larry Day did some Rev flying later in the day too.

Thanks to John, Ken and Brad for all the work planning the festival. Thank you to Steve Barker, and all who helped us in our festival preparations and helped set up booths and banners and take them down after the festival. Thank you to everyone else that came and had some fun with us.

Thanks to Mark Brandt and Larry Day who came from Clear Lake, IA with large kites to fly. But because the wind was light, all they ever got flying was some large Genki kites. And even those didn't stay up!

Thanks to Mark for his willingness to spend some time helping with the kids kite making workshop while he waited for the wind to increase.

Thanks to Ed Grys, our AKA Region 6 Director who came from Shawano, WI to represent the AKA at our festival.

Thanks to Paul Fieber who came from Madison, WI to administer the Glider competitions for kids. The Glider competitions were the most successful of all of our kids kite flying competitions.

Thanks to Ed Grys for helping Paul by flying the kite that raised the bag full of gliders into the air.

Thanks to Ken Wilkowski for rounding up kids to participate in the Glider competitions. Ken surely has a way with kids!

Thanks to John Kaulbars and Ken Wilkowski for co-chairing Flying Colors!

Thanks to Dave Herzig for putting on the kids kite making workshop. The workshop was the most popular attraction of the day!

People we hadn't seen in a while who came to Flying Colors included:

• • Jim Bateman of Minneapolis who came in his vintage automobile.

  • Owen Grossman of Minneapolis who flew a white Mylar Delta Conyne and a large Texas rokkaku

  • James and Margaret Ogland of Wayzata, MN who stopped in to see us. They are two of the founding members of MKS.

  • Kel Kroschell of Rochester, MN who is known for making world's record miniature kites. He flew some kites at Flying Colors that were small, but still bigger than his smallest kites.

  • Jerry Houk of Maplewood, MN who has made several award winning kites and who enjoys Kite Aerial Photography

  • Ron Pegg of Minneapolis who performed stunt kite demonstrations

  • Craig Christensen of Webster, MN who also flew some of his big kites

Here is a link to some coverage on the WCCO evening news. http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=82750@wcco.dayport.com

Here are pictures from yesterday!