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TEXAS NIGHT SKY FESTIVAL 2019
The Texas Night Sky Festival took place on Saturday March 30 at the Dripping Springs Ranch Park Event Center. Science displays, indoor planetariums, story-telling, vendor booths, and fun prevailed despite the weather casting a chill and cloud cover preventing the use of the outdoor telescopes.
The festival seeks to increase appreciation of the night sky and the effects of light pollution on certain species of animals and insects. The event was sponsored by the City of Dripping Springs, The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) Texas, and the Hays County Chapter of Texas Master Naturalist.
Hope Boatright, Communication/Marketing Specialist for the Visitors Bureau, answered questions about the new Dripping With Taste passport program and tourism.
Tejas Winds Lasard “Chief” Arrida and Julie Land Bridges were on hand to tell Native American Indian stories about the night sky.
Julie Land Bridges holds a rattle that was made in the manner of native American Indians. A hollowed-out cow horn filled with rattlesnake tails.
Peter Durkin told stories about the night sky from the Northern Cheyenne Indian tradition to children, inside a specially made tepee he made in the motif of an American Flag.
Durkin also gives presentations to area schools on tepees and the lives of American Indians.
: Martha Pinto and her husband, Jamie Kinscherff, performed “Americana folk music,” on the festival music stage.
Kinscherff is owner of Kinscherff Guitars, a local company that sells hand-made acoustic guitars, kinscherff.com
