Behind every Outer Banks business are people doing their best to make a living while still finding time to enjoy this beautiful place they call home. In this edition of Get to Know a Local, you’ll meet one of them: John Harris, owner of Kitty Hawk Kites.
The story of Kitty Hawk Kites started when Harris was living in Winston-Salem, N.C., after college in 1973. He saw a photograph in the newspaper of a man flying an early prototype of the hang glider, and his life changed.
“The moment I saw that picture, that was it,” he says. “I couldn’t sleep or think about anything else.”
He ordered a hang glider and 8 mm instructional videos from the man in the picture, and he and his friends learned to hang glide on the dunes of Jockey’s Ridge in Nags Head. In 1974 John was the first person to hang glide off North Carolina’s Grandfather Mountain, cementing him as an icon in the sport.
John and then business partner Ralph Buxton opened Kitty Hawk Kites in Nags Head in 1974 in the Casino garage on a site just across from Jockey’s Ridge. At that time the business was solely devoted to hang gliding. Over the years, Kitty Hawk Kites grew into the largest hang gliding school in the country, and they have taught nearly 450,000 hang gliding students, annually training between 6,000 to 10,000 students between their two locations at Jockey’s Ridge and at the Cotton Gin in Currituck County. Kitty Hawk Kites also has a hang gliding school in New Hampshire, where they offer paragliding, power-paragliding and tree-top zipline tours.
“We teach more people to fly than anybody else in the world,” John says.
Kitty Hawk Kites has branched out way beyond hang gliding. Other flight-related adventures they offer include kiteboarding, paragliding, the 1902 Wright Glider Experience, kite-flying lessons, parasailing and plane tours. Kitty Hawk Kites is also known for teaching thousands of people to kiteboard at their Waves Village Watersports Resort in Rodanthe. And, of course, they are known for introducing people to the art and sport of kite flying.
Kitty Hawk Kites is the Outer Banks’ largest recreational outfitter, offering dozens of other outdoor adventures, from surfing and standup paddleboarding to dolphin tours and kayak tours and more. They operate retail stores and adventure centers from Corolla to Ocracoke and have grown beyond the Outer Banks to other East Coast locations.
Over the last 48 years, John’s hard work has revolutionized recreation on the Outer Banks and connected people with this place in the best ways possible. Read on to get to know a little bit about the man behind the business.
Q&A with John Harris
How long have you lived on the Outer Banks and how did you end up here?
I moved here 48 years ago for hang gliding and Jockey's Ridge.
What did you do before you were in this business?
I was an engineer for Western Electric/AT&T in Winston-Salem, N.C.
What motivates you to work hard in your line of work on the Outer Banks?
Seeing our recreational activities and our stores create joy and lifetime memories for our customers. That’s what keeps me going. I love seeing people have a good time in our stores, on Jockey’s Ridge and participating in our many activities.
What’s your favorite Outer Banks town or village?
I have two: Nags Head and Rodanthe. Nags Head because of Jockey’s Ridge and Rodanthe because it’s what Nags Head used to be like and because of the kiteboarding and watersports there.
What is your favorite thing about living on the Outer Banks?
The natural beauty. And the people. It’s such a special place, and the people are special also.
What is your favorite season on the Outer Banks?
Fall and late spring – May/June. These seasons are great for flying and kiteboarding and hang gliding. I don’t kiteboard anymore, but I still take hang-gliding flights off the dunes once in a while.
What do you do for fun?
Fly. I have had my pilot’s license since June of 2016. I have flown to places like Gatlinburg, Beaufort and Ocracoke. Last fall I flew to Denver and back, making a lot of stops along the way to see family that’s all spread out. I also fly to Connecticut to see our two grandchildren. My wife, Sandra, won't fly with me (if that tells you anything).
What’s your favorite beach access?
8th street. It’s close to where I work, and I go there a lot at lunchtime.
Describe your perfect day off.
Traveling with Sandra to see our grandchildren and children.
Harris' family: Brother LB Harris, wife Sandra Allen, granddaughter Isabella, daughter-in-law Alexis, John Harris, son Johnathan Harris and granddaughter Ava
Do you see more sunrises or sunsets?
Sunsets
What’s one thing you wish more Outer Banks visitors knew?
That the OBX is such a unique recreational mecca. It’s unique being so far out in the Atlantic, which creates wind and surf that no other place gets and currents and fisheries that no one else has. This unique placement makes for great surfing, hang gliding, skimboarding, fishing and flying. It’s amazing that we have such diverse recreational opportunities in a relatively small geographic area.
Where do you go on vacation?
Anywhere we can. North Carolina mountains, Virginia mountains, Florida, Costa Rica, to name a few.
For a celebratory dinner, would you rather order take-out, go out to eat or cook something at home?
Go out to eat.
What is your favorite local seafood?
Scallops and rockfish.
What’s your favorite thing about your job?
Working with a great team of people to deliver lifetime memories to our customers.
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
Finding the people to deliver those lifetime memories.
How did the pandemic affect your business?
When the bridges closed early on, like everyone else, we thought we were out of business because we had a lot of vendors to pay and no way to pay them. But when the bridges reopened, we went from thinking at one point we would go under to having the biggest two years in our company history. It’s been unbelievable. The Outer Banks is so fortunate to have fared so well compared to a lot of other places.
Do you have any pet projects or is there a local nonprofit that you’re passionate about?
I’m very passionate about the Rogallo Foundation, a nonprofit we’ve been working on for a long time. The main objective is to build the Rogallo Museum to house some of the artifacts and tell the story of the Rogallos and their invention of the flexible wing. We want to tell the history of hang gliding, kiting and kiteboarding in that museum. We host Brewtag every October to raise funds for the Rogallo Museum.
What’s one item on your bucket list?
To take the rail trip across Canada from east to west.
To learn more about Kitty Hawk Kites all of their recreational opportunities, retail shops and many events, click here.
About the Author Molly Harrison
Molly Harrison is managing editor at OneBoat, publisher of OuterBanksThisWeek.com. She moved to Nags Head in 1994 and since then has made her living writing articles and creating publications about the people, places and culture of the Outer Banks.
