Independence Day Extravaganza at hand

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

We know it as the Fourth of July and Inde­pen­dence Day, and assume that it has always been a hol­i­day. But July 4th has only been a fed­eral hol­i­day in the United States since 1941. Any child who has taken an ele­men­tary school social stud­ies mod­ule, how­ever, will remind us that the tra­di­tion of Inde­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions goes back to the 18th cen­tury and the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, 1775–83.

In June 1776, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the 13 colonies, fight­ing in the rev­o­lu­tion­ary strug­gle, weighed a res­o­lu­tion that would declare their inde­pen­dence from Great Britain. On July 2, the Con­ti­nen­tal Con­gress voted in favor of inde­pen­dence, and two days later its del­e­gates adopted the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, a his­toric doc­u­ment drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

From 1776 until the present day, July 4th has been cel­e­brated as the birth of Amer­i­can inde­pen­dence, with fes­tiv­i­ties rang­ing from fire­works, parades and con­certs to more casual fam­ily gath­er­ings and barbecues.

On Wednes­day, July 4, folks from all over the Big Wal­nut area will gather in Sun­bury for their own ver­sion of the annual hol­i­day, the 2012 Sun­bury Inde­pen­dence Day Extravaganza.

The day begins early, with the 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Flea Mar­ket on the Square. Ven­dors from around the State of Ohio with sell antiques, crafts and every­thing in between, with plenty of food and bev­er­age ven­dors serv­ing thirsty and hun­gry browsers. The Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce spon­sors the flea mar­ket. There will be a $1 flea mar­ket admis­sion charge to help pay for com­mu­nity fire­works later in the evening; chil­dren under 10 are admit­ted free of charge.

At 9 a.m. the 13th Annual Memo­r­ial Vol­ley­ball Tour­na­ment gets under­way at Big Wal­nut High School. The fundrais­ing tour­na­ment, played out­doors on grass courts, is in mem­ory of Cory Lehman and Steve Mor­gen­stern and in honor of Erin Smith.

Sunbury’s 10 a.m. Inde­pen­dence Day Parade, Read, Write & Bloom, is spon­sored by Vision Con­cept Tech­nol­ogy and Indco Elec­tri­cal Con­trac­tors. This year’s parade grand mar­shal will be Com­mu­nity Library direc­tor and cham­ber board Chauncey Mont­gomery. The parade is orga­nized by the Sunbury/Galena Rotary Club and will fea­ture more than 75 entries.

Just for chil­dren age 10 and under there will be an 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kid­Zone on the Square (south­west quad, gazebo cor­ner) spon­sored by Ohio Health. The Kid­Zone will fea­ture free bounce house fun, fun frol­ics games with prizes hosted by Wal­nut 4-Hers, face paint­ing, corn-hole tour­na­ments and more. Adults must accom­pany chil­dren at all times; adults must pay the $1 square admis­sion charge.

Fol­low­ing the parade at approx­i­mately 11 a.m. there will be a Foot­ball Skills Punt, Pass & Kick Con­test at JR Smith Park hosted by mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Youth Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion. Sign-ups will be held at the park just prior to the start of com­pe­ti­tion, and prizes will be awarded. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion call Eric Mont­gomery at 740–965-9594.

As always, late in the day activ­i­ties move to Big Wal­nut High School for the 6 to 10 p.m. Siz­zling July Fire­works Spec­tac­u­lar, this year spon­sored by Mount Carmel St. Ann’s.

New this year, the high school’s senior park­ing lot will come alive with four hours of live, on-stage enter­tain­ment to enjoy before the fire­works show. Bring lawn chairs and blan­kets to enjoy the sounds of YESS Youth Enter­tain­ment, Dori-Kay Strom, Simba Jor­dan, the high school’s 15 Min­utes of Fame win­ners, PopArazzi, Nylon­Pink, and maybe an act or two more.

There will also be con­ces­sion ven­dors, the Big Wal­nut Ath­letic Booster con­ces­sions on the vis­i­tor side of the high school sta­dium will be open, and there will be free bounce houses for kids.

For pop and patri­otic music, don’t for­get to attend the 8 p.m. Big Wal­nut Com­mu­nity Cho­rus per­for­mance in the Big Wal­nut High School Audi­to­rium. The con­cert will fea­ture tunes such as Elvis’ Don’t Be Cruel, ABBA’s Danc­ing Queen, tunes by Irv­ing Berlin, and, in keep­ing with the occa­sion, patri­otic favorites such as Amer­ica, the Beau­ti­ful, My Coun­try ‘Tis of Thee, and The Bat­tle Hymn of the Repub­lic. While the con­cert will be offered free of charge, a free-will offer­ing will be taken to help off­set con­cert costs.

When it’s dark enough, at approx­i­mately 10 p.m., the event every­one has been wait­ing for begins, the Big Wal­nut area’s Com­mu­nity Fire­works display.

Event orga­niz­ers remind dri­vers that com­mu­nity cel­e­bra­tions are pedes­trian heavy events. They ask every­one to drive care­fully to do their part to pro­vide an accident-free Fourth of July.

The 2012 Inde­pen­dence Day Com­mu­nity Fire­works are spon­sored by the Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, the Vil­lage of Sun­bury, Sun­bury Chi­ro­prac­tic Cen­ter, Vision Con­cept Tech­nol­ogy, Amer­i­can Showa, Ulti­mate Tech­nol­ogy & Secu­rity Solu­tions, Imme­di­ate Health Associates/Sunbury Urgent Care, Feazel Roof­ing Com­pany, Jack­son Farms, Cel­lar Lum­ber & Roof­ing Sup­ply, Mud­flats Bar & Grill, Eagle Auto Repair, For­man Mini-Storage, BST&G Fire­fight­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, Molly’s Flow­ers & More, Jour­ney Fel­low­ship, DeVore/Snyder Funeral Homes and Sun­bury VFW Post 8736.

Event orga­niz­ers said fire­works spon­sors are still needed to help enlarge and extend the dis­play. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about the Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Fourth of July Cel­e­bra­tion, or to become a fire­works spon­sor, con­tact the Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce office at 740–965-2860.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jun 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.