The Lewes Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau would like to acknowledge and thank our co-sponsors of the 46th Annual Great Delaware Kite Festival, the Delaware Division of Parks and Recreation, Pat Cooper and the Cape Henlopen State Park staff, and all the volunteers who made the event so successful.
Our Kite Festival announcers, Jim Smith and Dennis Forney, did an excellent job describing the activities on the competition field. Jeanie Greenhaugh presented the Gene Bookhammer Best All Around Award, named in honor of her late father, founder of the event, to this year’s winner, Phil Broder.
We are very grateful to all the participants who came out to Cape Henlopen State Park to fly their kites – they were all winners! We’d also like to thank the people who came to watch, our 20 volunteers and judges, and the 13 chamber member businesses that sponsored 25 medallion awards: Rehoboth Toy & Kite Company, Beebe Healthcare, King’s Homemade Ice Cream Shop, Delaware Coast Press and Beachcomber, SPI Pharma, Jerry’s Seafood Restaurant, Jack Lingo Realtor, M & T Bank, Cadbury at Lewes, The Dental Group, Grotto Pizza, Kids’ Ketch and the Cape Gazette and Beach Paper.
The contributions of others who made the day noteworthy are: Kite Festival Chairman Bob Lore who also tabulates the judges’ results; Richard Julian for the beautiful musical accompaniment; Frank Shade and Wendy Ware for coordinating the judges, Rehoboth Toy & Kite Company for arranging the kite flying exhibitions and contributing a kite for the kite raffle; Maggie Lingo of the Beacon Motel for her donation of accommodations for the kite-flying demonstrators, Kids’ Ketch for their kite donation for the raffle, the Jolly Trolley for their excellent job transporting the spectators from the parking lot to the competition field, and John Graham of Wilmington who annually supplies the beautiful feathers surrounding the competition field.
Finally, Mother Nature is to be commended for keeping the rain away and for the perfect wind conditions that enabled the kites to fly high at beautiful Cape Henlopen State Park.
Betsy Reamer
Lewes Chamber of Commerce executive director
