The numbers are in following last Thursday’s attempt to set the Guinness World Re-cord for simultaneous kite flying in Enid.
After totaling registration forms, Stanley Hicks, a board member of Enid Habitat for Humanity, said the city had 2,598 kites in the air early Thursday afternoon behind Autry Technol-ogy Center.
That’s well short of the current record of 3,710 kites, set July 30 in the Gaza Strip.
Despite Enid not getting the new record, Hicks said $25,000 raised from the event will go toward building a new house through Habitat for Humanity.
“I can tell you I’ve had phone calls from all across the city and literally from around the country,” Hicks said Monday. “I’ve never heard people quite so happy about the event.”
Hicks and Richard Der-mer, who coordinated the event, told the crowd participating Thursday Enid had undisputedly set a North America kite-flying record.
Enid would have set the actual Guinness World Record had children in the Gaza Strip not set it less than two months ago, while Enid was in the midst of preparations for its own event. The previous record was set in Germany with 967 kites.
Nevertheless, Brent Kis-ling, executive director of Enid/Garfield County Devel-opment Alliance, heralded the success of the event.
“The weather was wonderful, the organization of the event went very well and all of our participants in the wind forum thoroughly enjoyed their time in Enid,” Kisling said.
Before the kite event, the development alliance hosted a wind energy forum, a conference that brought together 37 executives from 14 wind companies from around the region. One of the main goals of the forum was to discuss the possibility of bringing wind energy jobs to Garfield County.
“There were some specific successes we feel have come out of the forum that we want to make public over the next 30 to 60 days,” Kisling said.
As it turns out, Kites Over Enid may not just be a one-time thing. Hicks said he and other Enid Habitat for Humanity board members had a meeting Monday morning to discuss the possibilities of trying to set the record again next year.
Kisling also thought the event could be done again.
“I think with a year or a couple years of planning, we might be able to make a statement with something like this,” he said.
Hicks sounded confident it could happen.
“If I had a guess, I would say yes, Enid will have a kite event next year,” he said.