'Joy and magic for the season': families celebrate Balloon Fiesta eve with Albuquerque Aloft

Roosters crowed, the sun crept up and the fresh fall air was crisp and cold as Principal Kathryn Ramsey, of Mountain View Elementary School, readied herself.

She was preparing for parents, children and a pilot to arrive for an event marking the eve of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

“It’s my favorite day of the year. It’s literally the most magical day — just to see families outside, gathering, enjoying the view, being together, running around,” Ramsey said. “It’s nice for families to be able to meet other students that their kids play with; it’s just one of those open events that everybody can take part in. There’s something about the balloon that just brings joy and magic for the season.”

Since 2005, Albuquerque Aloft has been taking place at schools across the area as balloons are inflated — and sometimes take flight — in front of students, celebrating the day before the biggest annual event in the city begins.

Because of the school’s proximity to the Sunport and the large power lines and transformers surrounding the campus, balloons can’t take off from Mountain View, which sits along Second SW, south of Rio Bravo.

Still, Cyndie Ives, a balloonist who has taught at Mountain View for a decade, advocated for a balloon to be brought to the campus.

“At the time, one of my friends was the pilot coordinator for Balloon Fiesta. So I said, ‘Can you please think about coming out to our school?’” Ives said. “So that’s how we got a balloon here in the first place.”

Even though the balloons that come to Mountain View don’t take flight, Ives feels it’s important that the students experience one being assembled in front of them each year.

“We have a lot of homeless kids, we have a lot of kids that have a hard time with financial situation(s),” Ives said. “There’s no way they can get out to Balloon Fiesta and to even get close to the balloons … so this is definitely a fantastic opportunity for them.”

As the balloon was inflated, dozens of parents stood in line for doughnuts, coffee and hot chocolate. Many of their children ran around or played soccer on the artificial turf behind the school’s gymnasium, mostly avoiding the expanding balloon laid across the middle of the field.

Mountain View is a Title I school, which means 60% or more of its students are living in poverty. It’s also a community school — something Ramsey fully embraces.

“Any opportunity we have to bring families together,” Ramsey said, “we take advantage of it.”

One of the parents in attendance was Kayla Chavez, who enjoyed watching the balloon get inflated when she dropped off her son.

“Last year it was too windy, so it (the balloon) couldn’t really go up. So this year it’s perfect weather to see it come up,” Chavez said. “I love it. I look forward to it all the time.”

She added that she and her family will try to attend the actual festival this year.

A common Balloon Fiesta tradition is pilots handing out cards sporting their balloons to children. However, Barbara Montoya, the school’s art teacher, decided to flip the script on the pilots and have her students design their own cards to give to them.

“I thought it would be a way to thank him, thank them for coming to our particular school and, yeah, the kids seem to love it,” Montoya said. “He said that he’d never gotten them before, so he had a whole pile there in front of him in that balloon, and he’s like, ‘This is awesome!’”

That pilot was Mike Brennand, a local balloonist who operates the rainbow, mosaic-patterned, Milagro balloon. Friday marked his first visit to Mountain View.

“This is actually one of my favorite parts of fiesta,” Brennand said. “I really enjoy getting out; the community is such a big part of ballooning.”