Look -- up in the sky -- it's the return of the Thurston Classic

Jun. 15—Wondering what to do for your dad this year? Try a bit of advice: Remind him to spend a few minutes on neck-stretching exercises over the next few days. He'll thank you for it later.

Weather permitting, dads and others will be doing a lot of looking up to the sky this weekend. Meadville is once again marking Father's Day weekend with a sky full of hot air balloons for the 32nd installment of the Thurston Classic.

The event will bring 18 balloons from Thursday through Sunday. Leading the way will be this year's featured character balloon, Neptuno, a 120-foot-tall hot air balloon in the shape of a snorkeling seahorse with diving mask, seashell necklace and a curly tail.

"If we get the weather, we'll have everything we need," said balloonmeister Alex Jonard of Sycamore, Illinois. "We're going to do what we can to put on a good show."

After consulting weather forecasts for the weekend, Jonard was optimistic about the outlook for the night glow and the balloon flights over the weekend.

Jonard comes to Meadville having participated last weekend in a hot air balloon festival in Coshocton, Ohio, that was — like the Thurston Classic — being held for the first time since 2019 due to pandemic-related cancellations.

"The welcome from the public, I tell you — they were ready," Jonard said, comparing both the city and its balloon festival to Meadville and the Thurston Classic. "We're looking forward to the Thurston. The community has been very supportive."

Shortly after dusk Thursday, pilots will begin lighting up the night with the Joyce Stevens Night Glow, when a line of five or six balloons at ground level roar their flames to illuminate the balloons. The spectacle of glowing balloons consistently drew thousands of spectators in the years before the pandemic led to event cancellations in 2020 and 2021.

You can go...

The Joyce Stevens Night Glow kicks off the 32nd Thurston Classic at approximately 9p.m. Thursday at Allegheny College's Robertson Athletic Complex, 204 Park Ave. Admission is free. Shuttle bus service is available to transport visitors from parking lots to the viewing area. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own seating. Inclement weather may lead to cancellation. Thurston Classic events continue Friday with balloons departing from the complex at about 6 p.m. Sanctioned races, in which pilots toss bean bags at a target on the ground, will take place in the morning and evening Saturday and in the morning Sunday.

—More information: Visit thurstonclassic.com.

Last year a group of seven pilots returned to fly over Meadville in honor of Thurston Classic committee chairman Ted Watts, who died in late 2020 due to complications from COVID-19, but no Thurston Classic was held.

Mary Ann Benacci is part of the team organizing the event this year in the absence of Watts. Benacci began as a volunteer with the event in 2005 and recalled one of the first flights she took in Watts' Legal Eagle balloon, which was named as a nod to his career as a lawyer.

"We saw deer running in the woods, we did a couple of touch-and-goes, as they call it, where you come down and almost touch the ground and go back up," Benacci said. "It's just a wonderful thing. It's the closest to flying that you'll get."

The same Legal Eagle balloon that Benacci recalled flying in will once again be part of the Thurston Classic this weekend. Pilot-in-training Ray Hinchcliff of Canton, Ohio, spent nearly two years with Watts learning the balloon-related ropes and both of Watts' Legal Eagle balloons.

"It's going to mean the world to me," Hinchcliff said Tuesday as he looked ahead to participating in the night glow and flying over Meadville in the balloon formerly piloted by the man he considers his ballooning father figure. "I wouldn't be where I am in ballooning if it wasn't for Ted and the Thurston."

The magical feeling associated with balloons casts a spell that often seems to extend beyond the gondola to those looking up from the ground as well. From Jules Verne and L. Frank Baum, who made balloons central to classic adventure tales more than a century ago, to the 2009 animated film "Up," the aircraft have been uplifting spirits and entrancing the gazes of spectators since the Montgolfier brothers developed the technology in 1780s France.

To understand the fascination, all you have to do is take a look to the skies this weekend, according to Benacci — and maybe remind a nearby dad to do so as well.

"No one can see a balloon without getting a smile on your face," Benacci said. "We want to bring that back to Meadville."

Mike Crowley can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at .