Rocket ship launched

Barbara Diamond

A torrential rainstorm that drenched the city didn’t delay the launch

of the Bluebird Park Rocket Ship Wednesday.

“It was pouring early that morning in South Laguna where I live,

so I called John Pietig at 7:30 to ask if we were going to have to

scrub the groundbreaking, but he said it wasn’t raining at City Hall

and all systems were go,” Mayor Cheryl Kinsman said.

Kinsman, Councilwoman Toni Iseman, acting City Manager John

Pietig, Laguna Club for Kids Executive Director Shelley Cox Miller,

park landscape architect Ann Christoph, rocket ship fundraiser Sonia

Campbell, her husband, Chris, and their younger son, Ian, attended

the groundbreaking.

“The rocket ship was in pieces, some of it still in shipping

containers, but it is all here,” said Cox Miller, who grew up in

Laguna. “We are so excited.”

Weather permitting, construction is expected to be completed by

mid-November.

“We are hoping it will be done by Nov. 7, when the club is holding

its third annual community open house,” Cox Miller said.

The rainstorm that battered the city eased long enough for

pictures to be taken at the groundbreaking, but no speeches.

“We all smiled a lot and congratulated one another,” Miller said.

“The rocket ship is so full of memories. We just can’t loose any more

traditions in this town.”

Private donations matched by the city paid for the $91,000 rocket

ship.

Kinsman kicked off the fundraising at the city’s 2004-05 budget

workshop with a $1,000 donation and later proposed the matching

grant, which the City Council approved.

“But Sonia Campbell deserves the credit for organizing a

fund-raiser at Tivoli Too where about $20,000 was raised,” Kinsman

said. The Blues Offenders band, which entertained at the fundraiser,

donated its fee to the fund.

Campbell said she just wanted do something for the community and

for the children in town.

“Really, it was a community effort,” Campbell. “The first I heard

about it was in a school flier done by Village Laguna. And had it not

been for Cheryl Kinsman getting all that money from Montage, we would

still be collecting.”

Montage Resort and Spa contributed $20,000, presented to the

council by long-time resident Chris Loidolt, whose children had

played on the original rocket ship.

The first Bluebird Rocket Ship was installed in the late 1960s

during the space race. It was removed from the park in 2000 because

it was rusted and considered unsafe.

“Ann Christoph worked with the manufacturer on the design of the

new rocket ship,” Kinsman said. “It took more than three months to

build.”

Columbia Cascade constructed the rocket ship in Portland, Ore. It

is 32 feet, 9 inches high and weighs 1,000 pounds.

All the hardware is stainless steel and the main posts are

aluminum, to avoid long-term corrosion.