32nd Annual Arkansas Valley Balloon Festival Rockie Sanders Interview

Description: This Article Includes The 32nd Annual Arkansas Valley Balloon Festival SECO News Photo Gallery from Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021 in Rocky Ford, Colorado.

Arkansas Valley Balloon Festival Oct LJCC BLT

Audio from the October 28, 2021 La Junta Chamber of Commerce Business Lunch and Talk Zoom Meeting.

Julie Worley with LJCC Interviews Rockie Sanders:

Worley: We're going to hear about another event that's been going on in the Arkansas Valley for many years. Rockie is a committee member of the Arkansas Valley Balloon Festival, so Rockie tell us about the balloon festival coming up.

Sanders: Hi Julie, thank you. I'm the treasurer of the board, and I am looking forward to picketwire we're going to need some down time after the balloon festival to recover, so I'm looking forward to going to Picketwire. But the balloon festival this is our 32nd actual launching of balloons. We tried to do it last year but, you know, this thing called Covid kept us from doing that. It would have been our 32nd, so we're calling this 32.2 or take two. 

We have Twenty-two balloons coming to Rocky Ford from all over Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma. They'll be coming in Friday(11-5-21) to launch Saturday and Sunday. That's November 6th and 7th. Saturday morning we're launching at the site west of Rocky Ford just off 202 it's in Innovative Water Technologies big field, next to them. It works out really well for us. Our gates open at 6:45am on Saturday. We do a little bit of a pilot briefing about 7:15 just before sunrise so that we can have an update on weather conditions and such to prepare. The actual launch starts about 7:30. Now some of the pilots get a little tired of waiting around and want to start earlier and have this race to see who can be first in the air. 

They'll launch and fly around Rocky Ford, we've had generally this time of year a prevailing wind is to the East. We've had several balloons over the years go as far as Bent's Fort. They fly for about two hours, it depends on the weather, the winds, and where they take us. Sometimes we just hover around Rocky Ford.

That afternoon at 3 pm at the same site we're having a tissue paper balloon launch. Tissue paper balloons are made by area students from as far away as Karval and McClave. Everyone's been invited to prepare one. Dr. Craig Ortega and his family will help launch those balloons. They're launched with hot air just like our big balloons are. So that'll be at 3 pm. 

Then in downtown Rocky Ford at 5:30 we'll have a parade down main street and at the end in front of city hall and around city have a lot of the pilots setting up and doing what we call a candlestick. They won't put their balloons on to glow, but they'll shoot the flames in the air and I think that the chamber of commerce is providing smore's and hot chocolate. A couple of pilots in the past have allowed us to use their flames to heat the marshmallows, so everyone is encouraged to participate.

Sunday, we'll turn around and do the same launching of the balloons. Remember, it's time change weekend, so we're going to start at 5:45am on Sunday. Pilot briefing 6:15, so the launch is at 6:30 again out at the Innovative Water Technologies Field. While they are setting up people are encouraged to walk around with the balloons, ask questions, just be careful not to step on the fabric or step on or over any of the cords or lines, we don't want anyone to get hurt. Based on the information from Lynn Crowell, try to social distance as much as possible. Wear your mask, try to be safe.

One of the things we do is we do feed our pilots, Friday night at the reception, both Saturday and Sunday mornings they gather there. We have sponsors for the balloons, we also have sponsors for our events. Some of our major event sponsors are Van Dyk Insurance, First National Bank of Ordway, Las Animas, Rocky Ford. Fowler State Bank, Knights of Columbus, and 4Rivers.

We're also collecting things to give the pilots, we create a pilot box to welcome them to Rocky Ford. The boxes are decorated by Rocky Ford Junior High and High School Art students. And those pilots definitely look forward to those every year, several of the pilots have told me that they've kept every single box that they've been given. And a couple of our pilots have been coming for over 30 years.

We have a great event, I think so.

Worley: So this is the 32nd annual? Rockie is that what you said?

Sanders: That is correct. 

Worley: Okay, and have you always usually had just around 20 balloons, is that right?

Sanders: It varies, when we were launching from the high school we limited it to 25 because of capacity on the field. We don't want to create problems, that's the most we've had, but we've had as few as 18, so it averages about 20.

Worley: Okay, You're right on then. I like the balloon festival, does anyone have any questions for Rockie about the balloon festival? You always run into the daylight savings time change on that weekend.

Sanders: Yes. We need to get rid of that I think. Just remember sunrise.

Worley: We thank you for joining us Rockie. We look forward to seeing the balloons in the air.

Sanders: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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Balloon Fest Photo Gallery (Sat, Nov 6, 2021)