![\"40th](\"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1618547_598456616899857_424788348_n.jpg\")
<\/a>The Spencers \u2014 who also fly balloons around the world for The Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola and General Mills \u2014 will be assisted on the ground in Walla Walla by a local advisory committee. The assistance will be much needed as the 40th annual event approaches May 9-11 and a number of important planning functions have yet to being.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve got 75 days to do what I would normally do in eight months,\u201d an eager Scott Spencer said via telephone this morning.<\/p>\n
By this time most years, the call for volunteers would have long been out, a design contest for posters and T-shirts would have started, pilot registrations would be rolling in and Chamber staff would be working to secure sponsors for every layer of the weekend event \u2014 from the opening reception to the final launch.<\/p>\n
Those missing pieces had roused rumors that the Balloon Stampede may be in trouble long before Thursday\u2019s announcement. Over the last couple of weeks speculation has run from a complete shutdown to a scaled-back version of the event.<\/p>\n
Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer David Woolson said Thursday all of that was conjecture. He said the pieces for the new transition did not come together completely until nearly midnight Wednesday.<\/p>\n
That it comes at the symbolic ruby anniversary may be even more telling. Signs point to the event being in the red.<\/p>\n
Spencer said even with Gesa Credit Union\u2019s sponsorship the number of balloons may be scaled back this year to half of the traditional 40, and then potentially build from there. But it\u2019s not for a decline in interest from balloonists. Spencer said invitations to pilots were sent out at 12:25 a.m. today. By 6:30 a.m., 27 balloonists had already responded.<\/p>\n
The financing provided allows for pilots to receive a \u201cvery modest\u201d gas money allowance and funds to cover three nights in a hotel. Beyond that, the behind-the-scenes costs have mounted.<\/p>\n
Liability insurance has increased dramatically, Spencer said. With the cold weather on the East Coast, propane reserves have been sent there, resulting in soaring fuel prices for balloonists. The $5.99\/gallon wholesale rate that Spencer faced isn\u2019t expected to last through May. But it makes it nearly impossible to budget for the Stampede.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Gesa we\u2019d be having a very different conversation,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n
Woolson said the idea of finding another operator has been discussed for years by the Chamber board. The search for a successor became more serious after last year\u2019s Stampede.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some initial issues around financing and our limited resources on moving this thing forward. The discussion really came down to \u2014 as far as is this the right role for the Chamber \u2014 should we look for a transition for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a notice to Chamber members Thursday, Woolson said the free community event goes on without public funding and typically takes seven months to organize with help from more than 250 volunteers, including the Chamber staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was not a sudden decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tom Scribner, Chamber board chairman, said in a news release that the organization wants the event to continue but that it \u201chas been increasingly difficult to focus on our core mission and produce the Stampede.\u201d The Chamber\u2019s core function, he said, is \u201ca broad mission to build a strong local economy and advocate for local businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woolson said the change is all part of the evolution of the event that started in 1974 with four balloons in a wheat field outside of Prescott and grew into a three-day event under the Chamber\u2019s coordination.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is another in a line of changes over 40 years,\u201d Woolson said. \u201cThe core of it remains the same: This is about the skies of Walla Walla being filled with balloons on Mother\u2019s Day weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
via –\u00a0Walla Walla Union-Bulletin<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new era for the Walla Walla Balloon Stampede launches this year. The Walla Walla Valley Chamber of Commerce announced Thursday that after more than two decades at the helm it will no longer produce the community\u2019s annual hot air balloon festival \u2014 the Northwest\u2019s longest running hot air balloon event. Instead, the festival will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[625,627,628,624,623,36,622,626,562],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-boise-balloon-classic","tag-jerry-cummins","tag-liz-pierce","tag-scott-and-laurie-spencer","tag-stampede","tag-usa","tag-walla-walla","tag-walla-walla-community-college","tag-washington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1557294_599446996800819_1823423015_o.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RIC2-iJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1166,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Scott](\"http:\/\/balloonteam.net\/montgolfier\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1899912_599175750161277_484051291_n.jpg\")
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