Things looking up for festival

Marla Miller has seen the world because of kite flying but believes there is no place like the Southwest Washington coast to showcase the passion she finds in the wind.

“In the Grayland and Westport area, we have some of the best flying winds in the world,” the president of the Westport Windriders kite club said Wednesday as she prepared to host one of the season’s top kite festivals in Western Washington.

Started in the 1980s by some Westport locals to extend their hospitality to the many kite fliers who came from out of town, the local club now sponsors the Westport Windriders Kite Festival, which takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday on the beach at Grayland.

Cheryl Axton, one of the founding members, said the club began when she and her husband Al started to get into the hobby and sport of kite flying with Richard Soulier and Jeri Joyner, owners of the Pic-A-Patch Kite Shop and Little Richard’s House of Donuts in Westport.

Other original members were Darrel and Connie Wiltman, Larry and Jan Sweet, Connie and Rick Hale, Chuck Reese, Creda Clark and Sonny and Pat Kersh. The group was later joined by Shannon Beardsley and master parafoil maker Doug Hagaman and his wife Jody.

“We all flew kites and we would all have big potlucks on Saturday night at my place,”Axton said. “It wasn’t just locals. A lot of people came from out of town and they came every weekend.”

One of those was Miller of Tacoma, who is now the first vice president of the national American Kitefliers Association, in addition to heading Westport Windriders. Miller began flying kites at Westport in the 1990s, and she said the experience changed her life and has now taken her to kite festivals around the world.

The Windriders festival is where competitors can build up points leading to the American Kitefliers Association’s championship event in the fall.

There are competitions are for single-line, dual-line, and quad-line kites.

Each year the festival brings in a featured guest. This year it’s kite artist Scott Hampton of Sandy, Utah. Hampton’s banners and kites are known for their bright colors and original graphics.

Miller herself will be bringing a guest from England who is involved in a kite club there. Miller has been to Tokyo and Australia for kite festivals and plans to be in Viette, France, this September for a world festival of kitefliers on the Normandy Coast.

The Windriders festival, she said, holds its own in comparison to the larger events such as the Washington State International Kite Festival at Long Beach, which is held annually during the third weekend in August.

For Miller and Axton, the best part of the festival is the camaraderie of kite fliers and those who simply are fascinated by kites.

“As kite fliers, we just have a kite social. A lot of people come to it who we don’t see all the time, so we just have a good time,” Miller said.

The club now has about 20 regular members who gather year round, and about 70 members who are still affiliated with the club. Three died last year and there will be a special white kite fly in their honor, with kites bearing their names to be released into the sky.

Axton noted the club first started without officers or even a fixed location and grew to where it has had several hundred members over the years. It is one of the most prominent clubs every year at the Long Beach event.

She and her husband fly what are called Trilbys, which are dual-line stunt kites with diamond shapes and 45-foot tubular tails.

“We have a little routine and we have done it for many, many years,” Axton said of the skill she enjoys demonstrating at the festival.

Axton noted that new technologies and materials have completely changed kite flying in recent years.

“People think they have to run with a kit. These days if you have to run with a kite there is no wind,” she said. “They have come such a long ways.”

Westport Windriders Kite Festival

Location: On the beach in Grayland

Online information: www.westportwindriders.org

FRIDAY:

•Information and sales booth opens at noon, with open flying all day.

•Mass ascension of kites at 1 p.m. on Field 3.

SATURDAY:

• Open flying begins at 9 a.m., with handcrafted kites on Field 2 and sport kites on Field 4. Competitions and judging to follow throughout the day.

•Guest flier Scott Hampton on Field 5 all day, and open flying on Field 6 all day.

•Mass ascension of kites at 1 p.m. on Field 3.

•Teddy Bear drop at 3 p.m.

SUNDAY:

•Sport kite competition on Field 4 and fighter kite competition on Field 1, both at 9 a.m.

•Mass ascension of kites at 1 p.m. on Field 3.

•Teddy Bear drop at 3 p.m.