The Union Fire Company is the oldest volunteer fire department in the State of Illinois. Organized August 6, 1871, the Union Fire Company of Millstadt, Illinois began as a volunteer fire department. One hundred and twenty-five years later, the tradition continues and I was asked to make hot air balloons a part of their celebration.
A lot of pre-planning went into this event. Wence and Kathy Kveton, my husband Keith and myself along with Darryl from the Fire Dept. made landowner relations a priority for this event. We went out a month before the event and contacted landowners. I wrote an article for the local paper explaining about hot air ballooning and also how much we appreciate the landowners. I also contacted the local media to promote this. I gave each pilot a landowner certificate to use when they landed and the Fire Dept. gave each pilot tickets to give to the landowners to come back to the picnic to eat.
Darryl Hebel of the Union Fire Company and myself organized this event and planned for plenty of fun for crews, pilots and sponsors. The only rules of my race were to have fun, fly safe and make landowner relations a priority. Crew games were held in the afternoon and instead of having a hare and hound race we had a cat and dog race since Neil Anderson was flying his Garfield Balloon and agreed to be the lead balloon. Sponsors were given a lunch bag with (who else) Garfield on it and inside was a water balloon which they were to keep unpopped until they got back to the field after the flight. Just so happens that their launch director Randy Wagnon became their target when they returned.
Frank Hines of St. Louis got driven back to the launch field in a 1951 Ford Firetruck after he took first place flying “The Lady.” Tim Graham of Columbia, Missouri took second place flying “No Regrets” and Jimmy Gualdoni of St. Louis took third place flying, “My Balloon/Vess.” The creative cheating award went to Keith Reeves of St. Louis with the assistance of his crew chief.
The purposes of this event were to promote landowner relations by supporting the Millstadt Volunteer Fire Department and to have a fun safe race for pilots and their crews. I would like to personally thank the Millstadt Fire Dept., all the pilots and their hardworking crews and the sponsors for helping make this event successful. If you’re looking for a fun race to attend in 1997 you can e-mail me at: skyangel@rnet.com or call me at 314-427-8298.
Hot Air Balloons and Fire Trucks do make a great combination and shows people something positive about balloonists!