“Cy in the Sky” has landed and is looking for a good place to roost.

Owned by Bill and Toni Woodman of Ames, they believe it’s the only Iowa State University-themed hot air balloon.

At 70 feet tall, they say it’s also the largest balloon that features a fabric cartoon character sewn directly to the fabric of the balloon rather than painted.

“Cy in the Sky” was a familiar image for Ames residents and Iowa State fans, especially football fans, as it flew over the stadium on game days from 1985 to 2000, when both the balloon and the Woodmans retired from the pastime.

Now the Woodmans are looking for a new home for their beloved balloon, which brought them so many priceless experiences and brought smiles to the faces of countless Cyclone fans and balloon enthusiasts.

But they’re having trouble locating a taker.

“We approached the university administration to facilitate a donation without success,” Bill Woodman said. “We contacted the Iowa Balloon Museum in Indianola and were told that they had no room to display it and a similar response came from the State Historical Museum in Des Moines.”

Other entities the Woodmans approached included the ISU museum and the Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque.

So far they haven’t found a permanent home for Cy.

Cy’s colors are still as vivid as nearly 4 decades ago

“The fact is that as we approach the age of 80, it becomes more imperative than ever to find Cy a home,” Bill said. “All the artwork consists of fabric sewn on fabric such that the colors are as vivid today as they were 39 years ago.”

Cy has been stored indoors all of its life. Currently, the balloon is in a bag in a corner of the Woodmans’ living room.

“At some point, he needs to be in a permanent home and even better, seen by the public,” Bill said.

The Woodmans suggest that Cy could be set up in an atrium, attached to a ceiling beam and cold inflated with a simple cold air blower with the basket attached as a neat tourist attraction.

“The copy of the first hot air balloon, the Montgolfier, is displayed in this way at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington,” Bill said. “We would hope that some new building construction on campus or among the new CYTown constructions near the stadium would have such an atrium facing east or north,” as UV light is a killer of balloon fabric.

Phil Gray of Indianola, whose company created two of the Woodmans’ balloons, built the Montgolfier balloon for the Air and Space Museum and made it a permanent display the way Bill Woodman described. Gray has always wanted to see Cy permanently displayed and preserved and would likely be interested in helping with such a project, Bill Woodman said.

“A permanent place to display this wonderful Iowa-built work of art would be ideal,” he said.

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How Cy in the Sky got off the ground

Longtime Ames residents, the Woodmans are avid Cyclone fans and have a love for the community.

Bill started working in the Sociology Department at Iowa State in 1973 and retired as a university professor in 2010. Toni taught French, Spanish and English at Ames High School, retiring in 2002.

They retired from ballooning in 2010, but otherwise they are busier in their retirement than they were earlier. At age 70, they became scuba certified and on a recent visit to their home, their dive equipment was on the ready in their living room across from the Cy balloon bag.

“Ours is an unconventional living room,” Bill said.

The room also features a small performance space where the Woodmans play music together.

They also travel extensively in their luxurious 40-foot recreational bus.

Bill and Toni and their two children became involved in hot air ballooning for the fun of it and for the sport of competition. They also ballooned commercially by selling rides.

In the mid-1980s, balloonist friends told the couple that they should consider an Iowa State-themed balloon. They created about a dozen designs and consulted with Gray, who owns National Ballooning, Ltd., then in Indianola, now in Patterson.

The final design was a smiling Cy leaning on the balloon, an image that originally depicted Cy leaning on CyRide signs. They added the script of the Iowa State logo along with the iconic cyclone that leads down to the mouth of the balloon.

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“Before you knew it we were flying over football games, RAGBRAI, VEISHEA, Farm Progress Show, Iowa State Fair, and tethering at Special Olympics, basketball games and Cyclone Club events all over the state,” Bill said. “We also flew over some away games, particularly in Iowa City.”

When the Woodmans decided to retire Cy and themselves from flying, they sold their first balloon, named “Simple Gifts” after the Shaker hymn, and pondered what to do with Cy.

“Simple Gifts,” which the Woodmans also designed, was damaged by power lines soon after its sale, and they decided they couldn’t risk having that happen to Cy.

So the balloon is not for sale and the couple want to see it used for display purposes only.

“One of the greatest displays Toni and I ever saw was in the Grand Palais in Paris where static permanent balloon displays have been a feature since the early 20th Century,” Bill said.

Failing that kind of grand plan, permanent storage in a cool dark place would let “Cy in the Sky” survive virtually forever, he said.

Ronna Faaborg covers business and the arts for the Ames Tribune. Reach her at rfaaborg@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Cyclone-themed hot air balloon ‘Cy in the Sky’ looking for a new home