Tag: Natchez

Pilot Spotlight: Kerry Speicher and HiLight Bring a Family Love of Ballooning to Plano

For Kerry Speicher of Longview, Texas, hot air ballooning began not in the basket, but on the ground with his family.

Years before he became a commercial balloon pilot, Speicher and his wife, Stephanie, began taking their two young daughters to the Great Texas Balloon Race. Starting around 2003, Stephanie would sometimes load the girls into the car while they were still in their pajamas to go searching for balloons.

The girls loved chasing balloons, collecting pilot trading cards and helping crews on the field. What started as a family outing eventually became a family passion.

This September, Speicher will bring that passion, and his bright yellow-and-green racing balloon HiLight, to the H-E-B | Central Market Plano Balloon Festival.

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PILOT JOSH GOLL & “STAR STEPPER”

Pilot Josh Goll and “Star Stepper” are among the 50 hot air balloons and pilots that came to the 2018 InTouch Credit Union Plano Balloon Festival. Even though they loaded up and made the trip with his family, the Festival was cancelled due to flooding. We’d like to show you his beautiful balloon and share his story.

 

Let’s reflect back to  to 2017 and his first time on the Festival field as a pilot. It is quiet on a Sunday morning. The air is still, and the only sound is the intermittent hiss of a propane burner. The number 16 balloon, Star Stepper, glides southwest over the launch field toward a target spray painted on the grass. The pilot, Josh Goll, gets within feet of the giant red X marking the spot. He tosses a bean bag at the target, and the watching crowd break the silence to cheer his win. Goll expertly piloted his balloon so close to the target at the Festival Fly-In Competition that a spectator might forget the breeze is in control of its direction.

 

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