Giant kites decorate Waseca’s skies

Thanks to funding from the Waseca Sleigh and Cutter Festival, an average of 20 oversize kites drifted lazily above the western grounds of the Waseca Intermediate School the afternoon of Aug. 22. More than one “kiter” proclaimed the winds ideal for flying the oversized fabric sculptures.

 

“I would estimate the winds are between 12 and 15 miles per hour,” commented Craig Christensen of Webster, who frequently works with Great American Kites owned by Sean Beaver of Polo, Missouri. Christensen explained that Beaver was managing a field of kites in Albert Lea, while his son, Joe Beaver, was in charge of the Waseca showing.

 

Christensen also operates his own kiting business named “Mr. Kite.”

 

For the Waseca show, Beaver’s crew of about four people began  preparing around 9:30 a.m. and had numerous sculptures in the air by the display’s official start time of noon. Dozens of spectators were scattered across the large space. Some made themselves comfortable in the shade, others, especially families with children, purchased typical-sized kites from a booth sponsored by Great American and flew them among the sculptures. Other children chased the quickly-moving shadows of the kites, making it a challenge to see who could get there first.

 

Appearing in all shapes and sizes, the professionally managed kites stayed consistently aloft on the near-perfect winds, although one, shaped like a 25-foot zebra, would occasionally drift downward and begin to flatten before being lifted again by another kite tied higher up on the same rope.

 

Sculptures were rotated as the four-hour display continued; in the air about halfway through the show were colorful “mantas” 30 or more feet long, a brightly cheerful death’s head mask with many long, slender tails trailing behind it, a gorilla, a colorful penguin, a 10-foot long frog, and the zebra.

 

Also present for the display were some hobby “kiters” from the Twin Cities. Dalton Byers explains he and some friends decided to come to town when they saw advance publicity for the display on Facebook. The small group had numerous kites in the air in the northeast area of the grounds; most people present probably believed them to be associated with Great American Kites, but that was not the case.

 

Among the sculptures brought by Byers and his friends were an orca, a sturgeon-like fish, a pair of eyeballs each about four feet in diameter, a trilobite and a sculpture reminiscent of a stone head from Easter Island.

 

Byers said that as a hobby kiter, he owns about 30 of the fabric sculptures, including a model of Cleopatra which is about 100 feet long and 30 feet wide. He said he had not brought that kite along because “it takes a really big space to get her up in the air.”