‘A balloon festival? That won’t fly here.’ How Lewiston’s Balloon Festival founders defied the odds and raised the community.
Dan Valcourt went to Rachel Desgrosseilliers with an idea.
“You believe in doing things, and I’d like to have a hot air balloon festival,” he told her.
Desgrosseilliers couldn’t believe her ears. The idea felt random, but Valcourt, a firefighter, explained that the wind pattern in Lewiston and Auburn is favorable for it.
A newspaper clipping from the April 30, 1992, Sun Journal article about the conception of the Great Falls Balloon Festival. Bethel Shields’ name was misspelled in the caption. (Sun Journal archives) Purchase this image
She was sold on it, and wanted to make it work.
At the time, in 1991, Desgrosseilliers was on the Lewiston-Auburn Chamber of Commerce. She brought the idea to the local city councils, whose members were skeptical.
“A balloon festival? That won’t fly here,” she recalled them saying.
Advertisement
Desgrosselliers spent the next two years gathering a team that would make the cities’ first balloon festival soar in 1993.
With the launching of the 31st festival next Friday — the festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 during COVID — the founding members of the festival recently reunited for the first time in a decade to reflect on what they created and its lasting impact on the Lewiston-Auburn community as the first hot air balloon festival in Maine.
Balloons lift off on Aug. 16, 2025 at Simard-Payne Memorial Park during the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
‘YOU BELIEVE IN DOING THINGS’
In 1991, with the weight of the “no’s” feeling heavy, Desgrosselliers got to work.
“It was really tough trying to convince the community to do it,” said Desgrosseilliers, a former nun, nurse and CEO of St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston who later went on to become the founding executive director of Museum L-A (now called Maine MILL).
Balloon festival co-founder Rachel Desgrosseilliers recounts what it was like to put together Lewiston-Auburn’s inaugural balloon festival in 1993 as she gathered with fellow festival founders at the Station Grill Restaurant in Lewiston on Aug. 4. To her right is fellow co-founder Roger Blais, a musician and former hair salon owner. The two gathered with four other founders to reminisce about the two years of work involved in creating the festival, which will celebrate its 31st launching next weekend. (Libby Kamrowski Kenny/Staff Photographer)
So she called the leaders of balloon festivals in New Mexico and Vermont — homes to some of the country’s largest hot air balloon festivals — and asked operational questions. She connected with the Yarmouth Clam Festival to learn how to involve nonprofits as vendors to keep the money earned through the festival in the community. She traveled to New Brunswick to see a hot air festival in action. She created a business plan.
Most importantly, she gathered a team that would later become the first board of directors.
Advertisement
Roger Blais, a local hair salon owner and member of a local rock band, helped with entertainment. Patricia Kosalka, a banker, served as the treasurer. Bethel Shields, former Auburn city councilor, handled everything to do with logistics. Laurie Winsor, then-president of the Chamber of Commerce, helped get both cities on board. Chiropractor John Reeder served as the festival’s balloonmeister and coordinated all things hot air balloons.
A year and a half later, with the team having a check for $10,000 from a local bank and a business plan in hand, both cities granted approval for the first balloon festival in August 1993.
THE FESTIVAL’S SUCCESS
In the first year, the festival had 19 balloons and about 20,000 visitors.
At first, balloon pilots did not know what to think of the terrain in Lewiston and Auburn. At other festivals, like in New Mexico, there’s a “box wind.” The balloons ride straight up, they’re carried by wind in either direction and continue the up and sideways motion.
A promotional event for the upcoming balloon festival is seen in this photograph from 1994 at what is now called Simard-Payne Memorial Park, one year after the inaugural event in Lewiston. Among the dignitaries present were Chamber of Commerce leader Laurie Winsor standing with Auburn Mayor Richard Trafton, and Lewiston Mayor John Jenkins standing with others at the podium. (Gridley Barrows Collection)
“Initially, the unique characteristics scared the ba-jeezus out of them (the pilots),” Reeder said when the founders got together two weeks ago for breakfast at The Station Grill Restaurant in Lewiston, which borders the festival site at Simard-Payne Memorial Park.
“They were coming from areas with open spaces, but here, are trees. It was a learning experience for them,” said the experienced balloon pilot.
Advertisement
Despite the early trepidation, the festival grew. Two years later, it had 35 balloons and in the third year, the festival started to welcome regulars. The pilots liked the challenge and would travel from across the country to attend the Twin Cities festival, Reeder said.
It gained momentum as newspapers and TV stations across New England featured it. In 1996, a projected 100,000 people attended the festival, the group said.
Desgrosseilliers said the University of Maine completed an economic impact report a few years into the festival and found that the festival brought between $3 million and $4 million to the area by way of travelers spending money at hotels, gas stations and local restaurants.
It continues to attract around 100,000 attendees yearly and contributes an estimated $2 million to the Lewiston-Auburn economy.
Further, with the festival taking place along the riverbanks, it united the two cities when most people then believed that the river separated the two communities, Winsor recalled.
Former Chamber of Commerce leader Laurie Winsor talks Aug. 4 at the Station Grill Restaurant in Lewiston at a gathering of the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival’s original board of directors. To the right of her are Bethel Shields, former Auburn city councilor, and John Reeder, retired chiropractor and the festival’s first balloonmeister. (Libby Kamrowski Kenny/Staff Photographer)
“We felt it brought the two communities together,” she said. “All the festival activities took place along the riverfront. I remember people saying ‘I never spent so much time along river.’ It was a rediscovery for people who were longtime residents.”
Advertisement
A LASTING LEGACY
The recent luncheon get-together of the festival’s original board of directors allowed them to catch up after more than a decade.
Blais is retired but still in a band. Kosalka owns a campground in Georgetown that was featured on the Today Show. Shields is retired with her husband, Tom. Winsor moved to Bethel and volunteers around her new community. Reeder is enjoying retirement with his wife. And Desgrosseilliers organizes a regular lunch for retired medical professionals at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston. Valcourt, who had the original idea for the festival, died in 2020.
Though they are all on different paths now, the one thing that unites them still is their love and passion for what they created almost 35 years ago.
Shields joked that her husband has a photo of her on the phone from that first year, saying that’s all he saw of her for six months.
An image of the Aug. 23, 1993, Sun Journal front page, which featured a photo from the Sunday morning launch on the last day of the first Great Falls Balloon Festival in Lewiston. (Sun Journal archives) Purchase this image
Kosalka recalled how she created “Monopoly Money” for the vendors that first year that she doesn’t think would fly now.
Desgrosseilliers remembered a photo from the 6 a.m. balloon takeoff on the first year, where there is virtually no one in attendance. Another photo, captured two years later from the same spot, has a field full of people. She said the festival was one of the first times that people in the community realized the beauty of where they live.
“People would stop and say, ‘Wow. What a beautiful community we have. We have driven by here every day but we never look.’ So it made people stop and look to see what’s going on,” Desgrosseilliers said.
The founders’ laughter and memories remain as strong as the event they created, where three decades later, they continue to see both familiar faces and newer generations attending the festival.
“This is what you hope for,” Winsor said. “You hope it will be long-lived and something that has brought a lot of pride to the community.”
Balloons lift off Aug. 16, 2025, at Simard Payne Memorial Park during the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer)
Copy the Story Link
Tagged: auburn maine, lewiston maine
Emily Duggan is a staff writer for the Kennebec Journal. She graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of New Hampshire, where she was a news editor and staff writer for The New Hampshire. More by Emily Duggan
