Hot time in Sunbury for Fourth of July celebration

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Last Wednesday’s Fourth of July was hot. A typ­i­cally large crowd showed up for Sunbury’s Inde­pen­dence Day Parade, Read, Write & Bloom, but quickly evap­o­rated after the final float went by. On most Inde­pen­dence Days, unless it’s rain­ing, parade view­ers would wan­der the Flea Mar­ket on Sun­bury Square. This year many headed else­where; any­where with AC.

The Sunbury/Galena Rotary Club orga­nized the parade; Vision Con­cept Tech­nol­ogy and Indco Elec­tri­cal Con­trac­tors spon­sored the parade.

Parade announc­ers were Glenn Evans, known as the Voice of the Eagles dur­ing Big Wal­nut High School’s foot­ball sea­son, and Steve But­ler, who will soon take the helm as prin­ci­pal of the new Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School.

Rec­og­nized imme­di­ately before the parade were Com­mu­nity Library direc­tor and Sunbury/Big Wal­nut Area Cham­ber of Com­merce board mem­ber Chauncey Mont­gomery, who served as the Parade Grand Mar­shal, BST&G Fire­fighter of the Year Rob Stam­baugh and Porter Kingston Fire Dis­trict Chief Michael Thompson.

Of the more than 75 entries, the President’s Choice Award went to the Big Wal­nut Relay For Life float, and the Best Read, Write and Bloom Theme Award was the Sun­bury Lions Club float.

The Best Float Award went to the Harlem Town­ship Her­itage Com­mit­tee, with Koun­try Kids 4-H Club com­ing in a close second.

Jeremy Viers entered the Best Antique Trac­tor; Glenn and For­rest Heil entered the Second-place Antique Tractor.

Jeff Blair’s 1930 Model-A Ford was voted the Best Antique Vehi­cle, with Second-place going to Don­ald Feeney’s 1928 Ply­mouth Tour­ing Car.

The Best Horse Unit Award went to Heart of Ohio Horse­play; the Rag-Tag Gang placed second.

Fol­low­ing the parade, and new this year, Kid­Zone on the Square, spon­sored by Ohio Health, fea­tured free bounce house fun. Fun Frol­ics games, tra­di­tion­ally held at the Big Wal­nut High School Foot­ball Sta­dium, was also located on the square.

A Foot­ball Skills Punt, Pass & Kick Con­test held at JR Smith Park was hosted by mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Youth Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion and fea­tured prizes.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.