Colorful Kites Fill The Callaway Valley For 35 Years
Cindy and Dan Glos of Hershey with their daughter and her husband, Chloe and Brad Hengen, brought their Smokin’ Double D’s BBQ business to the Callaway Kite Flight. Dan Glos is a 1994 Callaway graduate. Saturday afternoon Cindy said business at their stand was going well. “It’s been really good today,” she said. The sky filled with kites, large and small, during Callaway’s Kite Flight at Foster Smith Field this past weekend. Bob Scharf of Cheyenne, Wyoming, right, and Rick Hypes of Loveland, Colorado, have been coming to Callaway Kite Flight for several years. Hypes attended the second kite flight and has been to 15 to 20 since then. “It’s always great to come here,” Hypes said. “It’s always fun.” Scharf has been to “at least ten” Callaway Kite Flights, he said. Some years ago at a prior kite flight, Scharf was one of two fliers who participated in painting with kites, that is, fashioning paint brushes to a corner of a stunt flight and applying paint to a canvas. It was thought to be the first time kite-painting was done in the U.S. (Courier photos by Mona Weatherly) Four-year-old Kane Smith of Holdrege and his grandfather Mark Leach from northeast Nebraska were a team, flying a shark kite Saturday afternoon. Leach, who grew up in Taylor, said, “I’ve been flying kites with the grandkids and wanted to make sure we made it here this year.” Native-Texan now living in Central City Dano Wright sits next to banners he made. Called “windfeather artworks,” Wright custom designs and creates customer banners. “I can make most anything, he said. Bob and Charmayne Unbowers of Colorado flew three kites on a laundry line with a “lifter” or pilot kite. Charmayne explained that laundry line kites cannot lift and fly by themselves, thus the need for the strong kite at the top of the string. The Unbowers have been coming to Kite Flight for many years. “The people are so friendly,” Charmayne said. “And from home, it’s just a six-hour trip.”