TAMPA – Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
It’s a plane towing “Super Bowl Champion is Jesus” banner!
Weather permitting, that’s the message scheduled to fly over the Tampa Bay area from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
“We advertise everything else in the skies, from Hooters to Budweiser. Why not the Lord?” says Jack Kelley, a retired pastor from Tampa. He coordinated the effort with Richard Norman, a retired airline pilot from Tallahassee.
This is the sixth time – three at the Miami Super Bowls, and two others in Tampa – that the banner has graced Florida’s airspace in the days before the championship game.
The men solicited donations from fellow Christians to underwrite the $4,300 cost to rent the service from Van Wagner Aerial Media in Hollywood, Fla.
Kelley thinks it’s worth every penny.
“God doesn’t care who wins the Super Bowl. He’s concerned about the players, the fans and everyone else,” he says. “If the world ever needed some good news, it’s right now, today.”