65th Annual Ocean Beach Kite Festival
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San Diego Kite Re-unite with OB Kite Festival
March 2nd , San Diego Kite Club joined Ocean Beach Kiwanis held the 65th Annual OB Kite Festival. Our club was involved with this event several years ago by running the kids’ kite making and flying. The festival would start at Ocean Beach Elementary School, with kite making, and commence with the children parading, with kites in hand, down Newport Avenue to the beach. Expense of the parade has cause it’s disbandment indefinitely..
Jim and Melanie Nickel, long time OB Kiwanis, and Glenn Rothstein worked together two years to solidify the kiting community with this event.
Glen accepted the job as Master of Ceremonies and proposed a schedule for the day’s event; a candy drop, a tail chase, sport kite demos and sport kite classes. He recruited the following to perform these tasks:
Candy Drop: “Goat Hill Gang” Rod & Marti Milburn, San Diego Kite Club
Tail Chase: Victor Heredia (owner of Kite Country), and San Diego Kite Club
Sport Kite demos: “The Kite Kids” and “N-Sync”.
Sport Kite classes: Revolutions quadline by Lolly and Ben
Jim Nickel organized the whole event with the Kiwanis in charge of the kids kite making, designing, judging, and awarding prizes to the winners. His group of 18 Junior Kiwanis helps make 900 Cobra kites in three hours. The gleeful children swamped the designated fields for kite classes, kite demos, and static displays. Thanks to Carol Pittman, San Diego Kite Club member, for choosing Dusty Rhodes Park for the event. The park accommodated all of us with room to breathe.
The day was full of laughter, picture taking by proud parents and live music. It was a beautiful eighty degree day in paradise. The wind was moderate leaving Rod Milburn’s large cellular star and Peter Lynn box kite grounded. .Jose Sainz did fly a couple of his award winning kites. Charles Gillespie, San Diego Kite Club member, flew his large Delta flag with a large owl as line laundry and many other club members participated. We glowed with joy of the day’s event; agreeing next year can’t happen soon enough
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