COEUR d’ALENE — Laurie Jaegar’s father, balloonist Mark Semich, had the heart of an inventor.
He was working as a carpenter to remodel John Wayne’s yacht, The Wild Goose, when he learned a career-changing piece of news.
“He had heard that the Navy was interested in using hot air balloons for observation again,” Jaegar recalled. “This was back in the ’60s and he decided to make one in our garage on my mother’s Singer sewing machine, which he ruined.”
Semich, who died in 2007 at the age of 79, was honored this year as a posthumous Hall of Fame inductee at the National Balloon Museum.
Kendra Minks, of the National Balloon Museum, called Semich a “true pioneer” in the design and manufacturing of hot air balloons.
“Although he passed away before the establishment of the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame in 2006, his significant contributions to the sport made him a deserving and honored inductee,” Minks said.
Semich began his fascination with flight early in life at the age of 14 when he built a hang glider with a friend in 1939, launching from Best Hill in Coeur d’Alene. While the experiment ended with a crash landing, Semich was inspired to fly higher.
Jaeger said once her father experienced the satisfaction of creating his own hot air balloons, he couldn’t get enough.
She recalled how the family would help when Semich took the balloons to schools and community events.
“We were thrown in the back of the station wagon as the chase crew. We used to have to disconnect the envelope and then chase it as it floated until it lost all of its heat,” Jaeger said.
At that time, running after a drifting balloon as it deflated was the only option until her father’s inventor brain started pursuing solutions.
“Then we were often chased in turn by the authorities because they were often reported as a UFO,” Jaeger said.
Semich eventually invented a deflation system that lays the envelope down to streamline the process.
“It’s come a long way,” Jaeger said.
A Navy veteran, Semich began manufacturing balloons at Fernan Hill.
When he was discharged with a war injury in California, Semich met Barbara, his future wife, and the couple settled in Coeur d’Alene.
Growing up, Jaeger recalled she and her brother, Brad, weaving baskets and sewing envelopes as well as helping with some of the mailing for the ballooning business.
“It was all hands on deck and you did what needed to be done for the family business,” she said.
At that time, when Jaeger’s father developed a new balloon, He would have to take an FAA representative for a trip to 10,000 feet (with an emergency parachute), turn everything off and then start the descent.
The family often flew balloons from McEuen Field when it was still a baseball field.
Jaeger said other than classmates thinking her father made party balloons rather than hot air balloons when she spoke of his profession, her family usually didn’t earn her any notoriety, with one notable exception.
“We moved to Georgia in 1973 and my dad took Jimmy Carter up in a balloon,” Jaeger said. “Jimmy Carter was in our little town.”
Semich was honored by the National Balloon Museum for his contributions to developing balloon technology, along with the rest of his Hall of Fame Class, Rob Bartholomew, of Carlisle, Iowa, and Ruth Lind of Bath, Maine.
Jaeger said the celebration was well-earned.
“It would have been a huge honor for my dad, I wish he could have lived to have seen it and realize that all of his inventions were recognized,” Jaeger said.