Flying high as a kite

Ben Lummas shook his right leg, cuing the soundman that he was ready for his music to begin. Against failing winds Sunday, the 5-year-old pulled his kite skyward and gave the crowd at the fifth-annual Huntington Beach Kite Party a show worthy of a professional flier. It was his day.

His triangular sport kite shot through the misty air, then gracefully descended to the earth, swooping up again inches above the ground.

Easily one of the youngest fliers in the group, Ben wowed the crowds to near silence, dotted with “oohs” and “ahs” at his trick-flying skills.

“They do axles and spin and go like this,” Ben said with a huge grin, moving his arms in sloppy circles before he went out to perform.

Following his routine, scores of people gathered on the sands just north of the Huntington Beach Pier for a mass ascension of 100 smiley-faced kites purchased to raise money for Ben’s family. Early this year, the youngster was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. This year has been rough for Ben and his family, spending most of their time in doctors’ offices and waiting rooms.

But audiences could not tell that from the boy’s cheerful demeanor. Despite the loss of his hair and wearing a brace on his right wrist because of his condition, Ben never stopped grinning.

“No matter what he goes through and has to deal with, he’s always smiling this big grin from east to west, no matter what,” Kite Party founder Dave Shenkman said. “I though that [smiley-face] kite was a perfect symbol of his attitude.”

Ben has been flying kites since his toddler years. Watching his parents, Mark and Jeanette Lummas, perform just minutes before made it easy to see where the youngster got his talent. Former 1996 and ’97 World Champion Sport Kite Fliers, the couple happily invited a chance to do something other than what they have been the last few months.

“Obviously our year has taken quite a turn,” Mark Lummas said. “Basically we’ve been in the hospital since January. To take a weekend to just enjoy [this] together and be with each other has been great.”

Stormy skies cruised in around 10 a.m. Sunday, surprisingly slowing the winds and creating less-than-ideal conditions for kite-flying. Not as many spectators showed on Sunday as they did on Saturday because of the weather, but that did not matter, Shenkman said.

“It’s about providing a great kiting experience for the fliers, and that it did,” he said.

This year, between 80 and 100 fliers participated in the event, and it’s growing every year, Shenkman said. He has been scoping out the sand on the other side of the pier, which would provide perfect stretching room. There are eight miles of beach to spread out to, but “unfortunately we picked the shortest strip with the condos on the other side,” Shenkman said.

The party began five years ago with a simple post on the Internet by Shenkman.

“I simply asked the question, if I were able to close an area of the beach for a party, who would come?” he said. “We planned on 10 to 15 people, but it was more like 50 to 60.”

The party is held from 11 a.m. until the sun sets on the last weekend of February every year, just because it’s easy to remember, Shenkman said.

“I like the fact that there’s really no schedule,” he said.

Despite the graying weather, scores of people gathered on the beach, dropping $20 bills into the Kites for a Cause box to buy a kite for the group flight. Donations soared in even after the kites were all gone.

The group raised more than $3,000 from donations and purchases, Shenkman said Tuesday. Owner of the Kite Connection store on the pier, Shenkman met the Lummases at the first Kite Party in 2002.

“We were blown away by the generosity of everybody,” Mark Lummas said.

The day before the kite party, a friend held another fundraiser in Yorba Linda, where the Lummases live. They still haven’t counted all the money raised, but as soon as they do, it goes into an account for Ben, his father said.