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Tracy Martin of Grand Island, a kite enthusiast, shows one of his kites during thre second annual Grand Island Kite Festival Saturday at Veteran’s Athletic Complex.
Kaleb Hood of Central City flies his kite at the Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Milo Dickhaut 4, attempts to fly a kite at the Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
The Friends of Grand Island Parks hosted the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Kids had a ball trying out the Bol kite during the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Carly Crakers shows kite goes how to do some hula hooping tricks during the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival Saturday at Veteran's Athletic Complex.
This is one of the kites flown by a professional kite flyer during the second Annual Grand Island Kite Fesitval Saturday. The event was hosted by the Friends of Grand Island Parks.
As kids, Tracy Martin and his brother Carey never thought their airborne kites would launch them into a community of kite lovers.
Tracy Martin said the siblings started with plastic “Walmart specials.”
“We had the real basic, cheap plastic (kites),” he remembered. “We put about 20-pound line on, just to see how high we could get them in the sky.”
“They wouldn’t lift any more line.”
More than three decades later, Martin, his wife Sherryl and brother Carey found themselves — along with their kites putting their kid version to shame — at the 2022 Grand Island Kite Festival.
Saturday’s festival features a variety of kites flying above Veteran’s Athletic Complex’s soccer fields.
Decades ago, Tracy and Carey’s kites flew above a different landscape: their grandparents’ pasture. By then, Tracy had graduated to a red, white and blue kite, “rectangular… angular in shape,” he said. “It has a tooth-style tail.”
“We would take our kites up there even and fly him in the pasture,” Tracy remembered. “They’d go down and the cattle would run away tangled up in the line.”
Though the family has only recently rediscovered kit flying, Tracy Martin still has it; however Tracy didn’t bring his “pasture-stained” kite to Saturday’s event.
The Martins have come a long way since those days flying with cattle.
Martin’s explanation of kite stunts seemed to come easily.
“Let’s say you develop a flying pattern that you want to perform a pattern that you have thought up. It might be a figure eight; it might be a complete circle. It could be a square.”
Then the flyer works with the wind to create colorful gymnastics in the sky.
“The different kites don’t perform differently, of course,” Martin said.
The wind — or lack thereof — didn’t exactly make kite flying a breeze. Amateur and professional kite flyers coaxed their flying art into the sky.
Martin said the air was “heavy,” the winds low and variable.
There was no lack of effort from the kite flyers, professional and amateur.
“I think everybody just had kites up for a while. And then when switched and went down… we had them up again — they went down.”
But that’s OK, Martin said. While kite flying is relaxing, what he loves about the sport is the comradery.
He has kite friend from as far as Oregon, and nearby as Grand Island.
“It’s a lot of socializing,” Martin said. “We socialize; we exchange ideas — even events.”
He and Carey’s roots in the pastures of North Dakota have called them back. They attend many kite festivals in the state, but not as far as some.
Martin has a friend who has flown kites in faraway nations.
The family’s interest in kites was rekindled locally after last year’s first Grand Island Kite Festival.
“We’d heard about the kite flight here. My brother and I said, you know what, why don’t we get out some of our old pipes we had as kids. So we came out and just enjoyed the day, flying kites.”
The kites floated, some darting, through the air for a cause. Funds — like entrance fees — go directly to Stolley Park Garden reconstruction
The festival was an American Kitefliers Association sanctioned event, but it wasn’t “members-only.”
Young and old watched. There were also opportunities to get your own kite on-site from vendors, to see what the sky could do.
Martin said, “You have to step away from your cell phone, iPads and computers and see what wind can do for entertainment for you, and just enjoy the outdoors.”
Jessica Votipka is the education reporter at the Grand Island Independent. She can be reached at 308-381-5420.
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Jessica Votipka is the education reporter at the Grand Island Independent. She can be reached at 308-381-5420
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Tracy Martin of Grand Island, a kite enthusiast, shows one of his kites during thre second annual Grand Island Kite Festival Saturday at Veteran’s Athletic Complex.
Kaleb Hood of Central City flies his kite at the Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Milo Dickhaut 4, attempts to fly a kite at the Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
The Friends of Grand Island Parks hosted the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Kids had a ball trying out the Bol kite during the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival at Veteran's Athletic Complex Saturday.
Carly Crakers shows kite goes how to do some hula hooping tricks during the second annual Grand Island Kite Festival Saturday at Veteran's Athletic Complex.
This is one of the kites flown by a professional kite flyer during the second Annual Grand Island Kite Fesitval Saturday. The event was hosted by the Friends of Grand Island Parks.
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