event report by Dennis Phillips

The 1999 Marble Falls Kite festival was held on March 20th and 21st. What a beautiful setting for a Texas kite festival as we opened the event on Saturday around 9 a.m. We began with the Novice Individual flyers; Josh Posey was our 1st place winner in precision and Evan Berdis took the honors in ballet. Josh was a local 14 year old from Granite Shoals, TX and Evan is from Austin. Our novice class was the biggest class. We tried really hard to encourage new flyers at this event by keeping the registration fee at just $10.00.

In the Intermediate class we had Ira Shields winning both precision and ballet. Ira is from Austin and has been flying for about 4 years now. Flying ballet to the Titanic "Love Theme", he really put on a good performance. Next up we had the Experienced class. In precision it was Aaron McCulley from Austin, Texas. Aaron has also been flying pairs (Thaloosa) with Tye Harrison, also of Austin. Aaron and Tye finished 1st in Experienced pairs ballet with a mixed music routine from Mortal Kombat (you have to hear this to believe it). In ballet, Kevin Kirkendal took top position flying a low wind routine. I'm sorry I couldn't locate his music selection,
but the routine was well put together.

Team EOL from Austin came out to dazzle the crowds. For those who have not had a chance to meet Austin EOL, they have been flying for about 4 years and the team members are: Eddie Zilhman, Kevin Kirkendoll, Jim Cox and Steven Ploof. Team EOL took 1st place in both precision and ballet for the Experienced team class.

The finale for Saturday... Troy Gunn and his Innovative routine. (If you have never seen this... make a point to!) The crowd just loved it. In classic Dennis Phillips kite festival style, there was little to no wind on Sunday leaving the Master class to earn the name. In Masters precision and ballet, the winner was Troy Gunn. Masters pairs was Reasonable Doubt, Dennis Phillips and Troy Gunn flying to Jurassic Park.

Again, we had open quad with no wind. Some dropped out but most braved the conditions and gave a run at it, literally. In first place for the Masters was Tye Harrison and for the Experienced class was John Binder.