Skip Durham, aka “The Skipper,” and Toni Durham, aka “the Crew Chief,” met in the summer of 2009. When Skip told her that he owned a hot air balloon, Toni thought, either he really owns one or that’s the greatest pickup line I’ve ever heard.

Toni said, “I tell people, I fell in love with the balloon, I fell in love with ballooning, and you have to have a pilot, right? So, Skip was part of the package deal.”

The couple married in 2011, and in 2012, they founded their company, Bluff City Balloons, LLC. Since then, they’ve had all sorts of adventures from taking skydivers two miles into the sky and watching them jump out of the basket, to accidentally landing—twice—on the estate of actor Steven Seagal. The balloon they are bringing to the festival is one of only six in the country specially outfitted for people with special needs including people with wheelchairs.

My name is Benjamin Eakes, a hot air balloon pilot from Meridian Mississippi. I fell in love with aviation as a young child and always found myself looking to the skies. I graduated college with my FAA Airframe and Power Plant license in 2014 and started a career in general aviation specializing in corporate and business jet maintenance. During my time in college I had the opportunity to have my first exposure to a hot air balloon and I fell in love! One evening in 2018 I was approached and asked if I wanted to wake up early and come help crew for a balloon. I was immediately excited because it had been some years since the last time I was around one.

The pilot I met that morning was Fred Poole. He was very patient and instructed me on the operation of his balloon and what I needed to do. Little did I know that would be the start of a life long journey for me. I found myself crewing for him more and more and one day he told me “get in!” Shocked at the opportunity, I hopped right on in the basket and before I knew it we were gracefully floating through the air. I knew from that moment I wanted to be a hot air balloon pilot!

After crewing for several years off and on,Fred told me to get a log book and he would teach me to fly as long as I crew for him.I did not even have to think about that because it was a great opportunity. I dedicated my time to crewing every weekend, traveling the country when he had different events or festivals. One thing I learned quickly is that crewing is not for the faint of heart! My flight training began in spring of 2023, and I worked hard. I gained flight hours every chance I could get. During these flights I tried to absorb as much information as possible. After many flight lessons in a Kubicek 120 I was finally told it’s time for me to really look at getting a balloon of my own. In the fall of 2023 I purchased my first hot air balloon a, Thunder and Colt AX8-90.

With the assistance of my great instructor and family of friends the name of “Silver Switch” was decided. I had many more lessons flying my balloon and gained more confidence with every flight. I received my private pilots license in June of 2024. I am a firm believer that crewing before you learn to fly is the best way to learn. My journey from crewing for the first time to now being a pilot has given me so much more respect for the crew. Our sport of flying is not possible without a dependable crew. I am looking forward to a life full of flights and adventure. I highly encourage anyone who is interested to get with a pilot and start the journey for themselves. The sky is the limit!

Chuck has been ballooning for close to 35 years with almost 1,500 hours in the air. He is the pilot for Yellow Bird. His wife Cindy enjoys the balloon as much as he does. Their greatest pleasure with ballooning is all the excitement people have watching them and all of the hearts they have touched over the years.

Fred Poole has a long history in aviation. He is a skydiver with over 700 jumps, a fixed wing pilot with a seaplane rating and of course a commercial hot air balloon pilot. His company Champagne Sunrise operates out of Meridian Mississippi and has taken hundreds of passengers for rides over the years. No stranger to adventure his wife Lori is a certified skydiver with over 200 jumps and his son Devon is a Open Water certified SCUBA diver, both are an integral part of the balloon crew and support Champagne Sunrise every flight.

Fred Poole soared above the Leon International Balloon Festival in Mexico, five black limousines tailing him from the ground. This flight, he was with the wife of a Mexican governor, and the limousines were the chase crew, the people who would pick them up at the end of the flight.

Fred was looking for a place to land, but the balloon had drifted over a local zoo. He asked his passenger if it was okay for them to land there.

She laughed and said, “Yeah, I’m on the board of directors. I think it’s okay.”

The balloon set down in the safari exhibit, inside one of the enclosures, scattering herds of gazelles and zebras. Eventually, the zoo workers—who must have been surprised to see a hot air balloon landing in their zoo—came to help them out. It’s one of Fred’s favorite memories from his 13 years in ballooning, or as he calls it “the smile business,” that is, the business of making other people happy. It’s why his balloon is called Joy.

I ask him how he got started and he says, “I literally woke up one day and decided I was going to fly hot air balloons.” Before this, he piloted planes and did skydiving. One day, he heard about a balloon festival near his home in Mississippi and became interested. He reached out to the festival and found an instructor.

“The rest is history,” said Fred. “It’s an adventure every time you fly.”

Tabatha Rainwater flies “π in the sky” hot air balloon. She will be joining us from Knoxville, Tennessee. Go Vols! Fun fact: Tabatha has previously attended this event with her family before becoming a hot air balloon pilot!

Mike Wahl releases the small helium balloon and watches carefully as it twists and turns in the air currents. He needs to know what direction the wind is blowing at all different altitudes. The information is critical if he’s going to win the balloon rally.

Mike boards his hot air balloon with his crew member and fires his burners, causing it to rise off the ground. Their target is a tall pole in the far distance with a key on the top. The competing balloonists will go one at a time and whoever grabs the key wins the event and gets one step closer to the rally’s $10,000 prize.

Navigating a hot air balloon is not easy. There’s no way to directly control where it is going as the balloon will always travel in the same direction as the wind. Fortunately, the wind is often blowing in different directions at different altitudes, so pilots can raise and lower the balloon to reach air currents moving in the direction they want. This is why Mike released the balloon earlier. Navigating this way takes experience, intuition, and some luck.

Eventually, Mike and his crew member reach the pole, but precision flying in a balloon is difficult, and they have trouble getting low enough to grab the key. Fortunately, there’s another option. Each balloonist in the rally was given a numbered bean bag to throw at the X at the base of the pole. The bags that land are scored from the pole at the X outward, with the closest three winning descending cash prizes.

Unable to reach the key, Mike and his crew member look for the bean bag… only to realize that they’ve somehow left it behind, meaning they have no way to win the competition. Panicking, they begin throwing random objects overboard instead—gloves, bags, whatever is loose in the basket. Finally, the wind carries them away from the pole and they have to land. 

At the end of the competition, when all the results have been measured, the judges return with a handful of bean bags dropped by other pilots… and a pile of random objects from Mike’s balloon.

“Here’s all the stuff you dumped,” the judge says.

Mike asks if their creative solution still counts, and the judges inform him that he has won second place. Over the years, Mike would go on to win countless other rallies but never in quite so unique a way as this.

Tom Steinbock has loved balloons ever since he was seven years old. At that age, his next-door neighbor hired someone to fly the very first Kentucky Derby Balloon Race, and Tom got involved with chasing and helping crew the balloons.

“I fell in love with it when I was really young, and I’ve been doing it ever since,” Tom said.

This year was the 50^th anniversary of the race, and Tom has been involved every single year, with the sole exception of 1982 when he was building a house. But Tom didn’t feel too left out that year, because the finish line for the race just so happened to be his front yard!

In 2016, he completed a childhood dream by winning the Kentucky Derby Balloon Race.

“That’s got to be one of my top favorite memories of all time,” Tom said. “I was just at the right place at the right time when I won.” He has been licensed for 37 years and has flown in 40 states and six countries. He has been married to the same woman for 41 years, has two golden retrievers, and lives in Crestwood, Kentucky.