He can’t get enough of the Tri-City Water Follies, even a half century later

When Kay Metz points to a father holding his son, he beams with pride.

“We didn’t have that before,” the longtime Tri-City Water Follies board member and volunteer said. “Years ago, it was kind of wild down here. So wild you didn’t want to bring a family down here.”

The wild days of the Water Follies are behind it, Metz said. Now families can be seen strolling everywhere along the waterfront and watching the boat races.

“If you take the family away, nobody wants to go down there, then it will ruin it,” he said. “When people come down here they’re not going to be harassed. They’re going to be taken care of.”

The effort to make Water Follies an event that the whole family can enjoy is one of the changes that Metz is the most proud of in his 52 years volunteering at the race.

He attended his first race in 1966, and has seen every one since.

“I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly over the years,” he said.

He started as a pit boat pilot, towing hydros back if they had engine trouble, before moving on to work with the patrol boats. For four years, he managed the group of people who volunteer their boats and time to keep the shoreline safe, and responding to emergencies on the water.

One of his top memories is being one of the five men who responded to Dave Villwock’s near-fatal crash in 1997. The team included paramedics and divers, and Metz was driving the boat that reached him.

“Without the rescue, he would have been dead today, but we revived him, and got him stabilized, and shipped him over to Harborview, and we saved his life out there,” he said.

Much like NASCAR for auto racing, the boats are faster now, reaching speeds of near 200 mph, and that change requires more highly trained people to manage the event, Metz said.

He described the Follies as a giant family affair that attracts people from across the spectrum.

“We’ve got a reputation as the best in the country, the best in the world,” he said. “We see people walking and they got their booster button from 1966. It’s one of the greatest shows. … People come away happy.”

Racing gets into the blood, and he finds himself continually drawn back to its call. He compared it to being a rodeo rider or making a big catch during a fishing trip.

“It gets you excited, so as we have the Water Follies and the boat racing it creates a lot of excitement, and you get hooked on it and you want to do it again,” he said.

“The neat element is that I have people come up to me and say, ‘Kay, I haven’t seen you since last year,’ and they’re here every year.”

This story was originally published July 29, 2017 at 6:01 PM with the headline "He can’t get enough of the Tri-City Water Follies, even a half century later."