AMARILLO, Texas USA — Rocket enthusiasts from around the world will gather in Amarillo for the 21st annual International High Power Rocketry Meet July 11-16.

Airspace as high as 30,000 feet will be cleared for launches. Rockets will take off from an open field 2 miles west of Wayside.

Rocket Scientist: Pat Gordzelik puts together the inside section of a rocket that she is building in her basement. Gordzelik is a member of Potrocs, a regional rocket club, whose membership is 30 percent female. Photo: Jennifer Veneklasen.

Potrocs, a regional rocket club of 55 members, will host the launch. This is the first time that the international launch has come to Texas, said Pat Gordzelik, launch director and founder of Potrocs.

Besides Potrocs, more than 100 international clubs are affiliated with the Tripoli High Power Rocketry Association. All Tripoli clubs can bid on hosting the annual meet, said Gordzelik.

"We put together a pretty slick proposal," Gordzelik said.

The Potrocs proposal offered rocketeers airspace up to 30,000 feet compared to the 8,000 feet that was available at last year's launch. Airspace, coupled with the availability of wide open spaces in the Panhandle, is what put the proposal over the top, Gordzelik said.

In 1986 Gordzelik found a renewed interest in rockets through his nephews. He has been building them ever since.

Gordzelik started the Potrocs club in 1999. He and his wife Lauretta turned their workout room into a sort of lab, to build and house their rockets.

Gordzelik admits he is obsessed. Luckily, Lauretta Gordzelik shares her husband's enthusiasm.

"I enjoy it because your competition in the sport is with yourself," she said.

Husband and wife teams are becoming more common in rocket launching, according to the couple.

"We both have different strengths, and so together we are able to make better rockets," Pat Gordzelik said.

Pat Gordzelik, a small business owner, and Lauretta Gordzelik, a pharmacist, said they usually spend around three nights a week working on their rockets.

The rockets can be as simple or as complicated as you want, Pat Gordzelik said.

He said people can spend two years working on one project, and some people even put cameras aboard their rockets.

More than 500 flyers, their families, vendors and observers are expected to attend the launch, according to a press release from Potrocs.

The organization also expects more than 3,000 rockets to be flown, in sizes from children's model rockets to rockets 30 feet tall and weighing hundreds of pounds.

Copyright © 2002, Amarillo Globe-News.