The sky is an ominous gray with the threat of rain, but John Perry isn’t worried. For the past five years, he’s been coming to the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce’s Parties on the Parkway and can’t remember the last time it was cancelled. Whatever the weather brings, he knows that soon there will be a crowd swarming him. So he carefully puts on his 30-pocket apron filled with all colors of the rainbow and gets ready to work his magic.

“He’s very requested,” says Natalie Redmond, the chamber’s vice president. “I always get the question at the beginning of the season, ‘The balloon guy’s going to be there, right?’”

“Balloon guy” may be what he’s called here, but the term is used loosely. He’s as much a “balloon guy” as James Beard or Paul Prudhomme are “cooking guys.” John and his wife, Johnna Wright-Perry, are college-trained artists and owners of Up, Up and Away!, a special event, entertainment and decor service in Liberty, Mo. Although they do make clever things out of balloons, such as palm trees for your head and wearable butterfly costumes, they also create multi-dimensional and animated balloon sculptures like the life-size airplane they made for the Kansas City aviation museum and their annual full-size K.C. Wolf for the Chiefs. That’s not to mention the re-creation of American Gothic near Des Moines, Iowa, or an entire jungle at the Louisville World Expo, where they made a new sculpture every day for 11 days, including a 15-foot giraffe. Even that is a drop in the bucket compared to the sculpture they made in Belgium. The duo was chosen to be on a team of 43 artists to make the world’s largest balloon sculpture measuring 25-by-85 feet.

“40,781 balloons,” Johnna says, without missing a beat.

It’s been a different path than they ever dreamed of when growing up in Winston and Hamilton in Missouri. John studied studio art, and Johnna planned on being a fashion designer. That all changed when a friend gave them a book on how to make balloon figures. Soon, they wanted to do more than little dogs and swords, and they begin making their own designs for parties and corporate events.

Back at the party, John begins his rounds, approaching Josh Budden who is sitting quietly in a lawn chair.

‘What’s your favorite color?” John asks.

Blue is the answer, so John quickly pulls out a long, blue balloon to twist into a headpiece supporting a long, pink balloon tongue sticking out of giant, red lips and puts the whole thing on Josh’s head. Everyone nearby roars with laughter, and they all ask for balloons of their own. The party has begun.

Lifestyles reporter Sylvia Anderson may be reached at sylviaanderson@npgco.com.