McConnellsburg Elemetary School

[Richard Hays]

I am sun burned; tired; hungry thirsty, miserable and well........pee'weed out. OMG.....Got up at 3am and hit road by 4:30 to get to McConnellsburg by 8am. Setup glider; talked with teachers and then the pee-wee parade began. Non-stop from 8:30am until noon. They are definitely procreating in McConnellsburg. LOL

So...I got the moms and teachers in the harness. Kids got to play touchy the glider. Day went well. Handed out hang gliding magazines and let the school burn some VHS and DVD stuff i had for their library.

Kids had a blast. Taught them as much as I could about THEIR FAMOUS HANG GLIDING SITE behind their school. I definitely hamme'd it up to keep their attention and talked about FAMOUS Pa. hang glider pilots like Rex Miller ( World Champion ) Pete Lehman; Pete Osborne and of course aviation pioneers like Perry Rodgers who lived in Pittsburgh. Perry was the first aviator to fly across the USA in a Wright Flyer. Cool dude. Buried in Allegheny Cemetery. Lost in time.....all.

Drove up to launch afterwards. Sat and watched buzzards thermal out in the SSW winds. Beautiful, hot, humid summer day.

AND....no less than two land owners came up and thanked me for doing the school thing. One was the neighbor of the primary LZ and the other were the folks who live right there at Kurshners Knob. I apologized for our parking and silliness and she was totally cool with us. And again...thanked me for doing the show and tell at the school. Point being.....I think they appreciated the days efforts.

So there you have it. Not as cool as the Kite Festival in DC but maybe just as productive. At least locally.

Richard Hays
Maryland Hang Gliding Association.

[mingram]

Ambassador Hays! Way cool!

[deveil]

Wow . . . . . . . . uhmm . . . . . . . .let me rephrase that . . . . . . . . WOW!

[sailin]

Awesome man!!!! Sounds like a great day. Thanks for being such a gret ambassador for our sport and keeping the local relationships alive and well.

Awesome!
Jon

[silverwings]

Way to go Richard.

[mcgowantk]

Well done Richard - Thanks for taking the time with these kids. I hope you had as much fun as they did! I am sure that you also did wonders for our reputation in that valley. Thank you.

Tom McGowan