|
 Five dollars bought a player three tries at hitting the target
and sinking the celebrity volunteer in a short-distance, but very
sudden dive, the youngest players sometimes getting an “assist” from
the dunk tank’s enthusiastic promoter when they actually hit the
target, but maybe didn’t have the arm strength to trigger the
dunking mechanism.
Saturday featured a scheduled lineup of eleven local businesspeople,
aldermen, and artists, including some familiar faces from the Logan
County Alliance, with certain volunteers standing by to fill in for
absences. Substitutions to the lineup resulted in volunteers like
local teenager Zak Luken being conscripted to sit for shifts as long
as 90 minutes in soaked clothes on the windy airfield.
“It’s warmer in the tank than up here,” Luken joked, while
explaining the “rules” of the dunk tank game to passers-by,
entreating them to buy dunk tank tickets both to benefit a good
cause, and to put him back in the water and out of the wind.
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How did Zak get this exciting job? “My dad is one of the organizers
of the event,” Luken revealed, his teeth chattering, adding that his
dad “hasn’t been dunked…yet.” Zak has also been a prize-winning
member of the Speech team at Lincoln Community High School. His
school will benefit from the dunk tank proceeds.
After their shifts in the dunk tank and a change into dry clothes,
Zak and other tank volunteers went on to work other posts on the
grounds throughout the event. Despite the blue lips from the
physical hardship, Luken and other dunk tank volunteers remained in
good spirits and enjoyed the close of activities on Saturday.
Zak himself was spotted hours later working the admissions gate, a
smile on his face, happy to be out of the “seat of honor” but proud
to have had such an important role in making the Balloon Festival a
success.
[Ben McBroom] |
