Pontiac’s Freedom Weekend Aloft celebrated its 15th Anniversary in Greenville, South Carolina May 24-27, 1996. This year brought new dates as the event’s leadership decided to move the patriotic hot air ballooning and entertainment event to Memorial Day Weekend, instead of the Fourth of July weekend. In researching thirty years of weather data, results indicated that this holiday weekend should have provided cooler weather and more favorable winds for the balloons. However, despite the compiled weather data, Mother Nature pitched a change-up and Friday’s high was hotter than the first day of the festival last year.
By mid Friday afternoon festival organizers worried briefly as a cool front moved in. Gray clouds in the sky brought showers to nearby towns but the festival grounds at Donaldson Center Industrial Park stayed dry. Despite the threat of unstable weather, around 6 p.m. it cleared and most of the balloonists were able to make the evening task which was a fly-in from two miles south of the airport. Because of a shift in low-level winds after takeoff, only the first few pilots flew anywhere near even the southernmost target. Consequently, only eight pilots threw their bags filled with sponsor Uncle Ben’s rice near the neon green “X” inside the orange circle.
Pilot Bill Whidden of Kissimmee, Florida won Friday night’s event by landing his bag 15.45 feet from the center of the target, taking $750 in prize money and the lead in points.
After a beautiful sunset of muted orange and grayish-blue, country music entertainers, Tracy Byrd and Collin Raye took the concert stage as the crowd sat back, cooled off with Bud Lights and enjoyed the beat.
Saturday’s weather report was for some clouds, stray thunderstorms and a forecast of 86 degrees. Somewhere near 1 a.m. Saturday morning though, those “stray” thunderstorms violently hit the area, bringing windy blasts, rain, thunder and lightening. By sunrise the winds were still too gusty to fly and the morning mass ascension was canceled.
The mass ascent of the hare and hound competition Saturday evening was great for the crowd, as nearly 100 balloons took to the sky. The original direction of flight had to be changed since the winds were blowing in the wrong direction, so the balloonists had to fly away from Donaldson Industrial Center rather than toward it as planned.
Once the two hares, flown by Charlie Loucks in “Miss Dixie,” and Bill Wright in “Hot Diggity” took off, the hounds followed. Shortly after the hounds launched, the winds almost stopped, as did some of the balloons. Most pilots had to land within a quarter- mile of the field and stayed within view of the spectators the entire time they were airborne. Those pilots that were lucky enough to get a quick launch followed Charlie and Bill in hot pursuit. Bill must have gotten caught up in the wind shift because in commenting about his flight, Balloonmeister Ben Burbridge said, “Bill ended up being chased by the hounds. He must of felt like General Custer being surrounded by Indians as he flew back into the pack.” Noticing that none of the hounds ever gained ground on Charlie, Ben said “... and Charlie did a good job of losing the hounds, which is what he must of thought a hare was supposed to do!”
First place prize money of $3,250 for Saturday evening’s race was awarded to pilot Mike Clark, originally from Greenville, who flew the smallest competition balloon in the event. His 42,000 cubic feet balloon is a home-built experimental basket with a single burner built by a former Balloon Works employee. The first time Mike flew the balloon was May 21, just three days before Freedom Weekend Aloft. Mike commented that it was fun to fly, had excellent maneuverability and was great on fuel consumption. By the way, he added, “It’s for sale too!”
Saturday night, The Romantics took the stage performing their unique form of popular hard rocking music. Immediately following Blessid Union of Souls, a band which considers themselves “socially conscious without being preachy” performed releases from their debut album Home. Light rain fell about halfway through The Romantics’ set, but by the time they broke into their hit “Talking in Your Sleep,” the rain clouds had drifted away.
The National Weather Service called for Sunday’s high to be in the mid-80s with a greater chance of thundershowers. Sure enough, with 95 pilots answering roll call under the blue and white striped tent on Sunday morning, there was rain within two miles from the site and heavy clouds. The bad weather caused the officials to scrub both the morning and evening launches. Had Mother Nature cooperated, there would have been a key grab with the grand prize of a new Cameron and two envelopes holding $5,000 and $10,000, respectively.
Spectators in attendance Sunday afternoon attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the “The World’s Largest Line Dance” hosted by Budweiser of Greenville and radio stations, 92.5 WESC and 93 Q COUNTRY. The current record is held by Rowlett, Texas where 3,197 people danced for over ten minutes. Freedom Weekend’s crowd grew to 1,782 people for the country line dance record, but fell short of Texas’ record. Although no record was broken, everyone seemed to have fun giving it a good ol’ country try.
Even though a waffling front blew in Sunday night and the sky dumped on the spectators, entertainer Travis Tritt didn’t. As fans opened their colorful umbrellas for protection, Tritt took the stage and saved the day. Festival President, Susan Hoag, said that the evening concert was the best of the weekend.
“We appreciate y’all waiting in the rain for us,” Tritt told the crowd. The crowd roared into a frenzy when he played “Put Some Drive in Your Country,” and the lyric “We played some shows in Carolina.” The concert ended with Tritt paying tribute to Elvis Presley with “T-R-O-U-B-L-E.”
Disagreeable skies kept the balloons aground on Monday, the last day of the festival. Unfortunately, the unpredictable weather dogged the festival all four days. The balloonists said they would have liked to have flown more but wrote off the erratic weather as part of a bizarre spring storm in the Upstate.
Since there was no competition on Sunday or Monday morning, $8,500 in prize money was rolled-over and shared equally between the pilots who were at Monday evening’s roll call. With a 10 knot wind speed limit and winds gusting from 12 to 15 knots, Monday night’s flight was aborted, even after a 45 minute hold to see if a miracle would happen.
Luck finally ran out for the organizers when they had to cut off the Temptations in the middle of their second song and send everyone home as another thunderstorm rolled in. Just minutes earlier, the crowd had been enthralled by a fireworks spectacular while Mother Nature competed with her own sky-crackling show in the distance. Ironically, the one song the Temptations made it through was, “I Wish It Would Rain.”
Freedom Weekend Aloft was established in 1982 by the Greenville Chamber of Commerce to provide a local event centered around patriotic family entertainment. The festival promotes hot air ballooning and the Greater Greenville area, while raising money for local and regional charities. Over the last five years, $108,000 has been given to charities as a result of the festival.
