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Fireworks display to be Saturday
By Carey King
Downtown Sylva’s annual Fourth of July fireworks display will light up the skies during a pre-Independence Day event.
This year’s show is set for Saturday, July 3 – one day before the actual Fourth – a decision made to be respectful of churches on Sunday, said Jeff Carpenter, the director of the county’s Recreation and Parks Department.
Sylva police will begin blocking Main and Mill streets around 6 p.m., or “whenever pedestrian traffic gets heavy,” Chief Jeff Jamison said. Vehicles on Business 23 will be rerouted at the Jackson County Rescue Squad building onto Old Dillsboro Road, exiting at Grindstaff Cove Road, he said.
Food and non-profit vendors will set up shop in the parking lot beside It’s By Nature gift store. The Stephens Family will sell fry bread, and members of the Golden Age Senior Center will market lemonade and baked goods to raise funds for their trip to the statewide Senior Games in Raleigh. Sylva Partners in Renewal will sell bottled water, Fourth of July-themed items and engraved bricks for the Mill Street renovation plan. Scotts Creek Baptist Church plans to vend food items, and Buff Creek Baptist Church and the Rescue Squad also intend to have a presence.
As in years past, members of First Baptist Church will offer hot dogs and homemade ice cream on the church lawn.
Country musician Matt Stillwell’s show will begin at 6 p.m., with the classic rock and top-40 Bobby Sullivan Band to follow at 7:30.
Interspersed between the musical performances will be games for kids in the parking lot behind the Grapevine (formerly Meriwether’s) restaurant. Youngsters will compete in their Oreo cookie-stacking and watermelon seed-spitting skills, Carpenter said.
There’ll also be an inflatable super slide set up in the First Citizens Bank parking lot. Children will be able to scoot down for 50 cents a ride, he said.
Lawn chairs and radios are encouraged for the fireworks show, which will begin at dark. To accompany the spectacle, WRGC plans a WestCare-sponsored broadcast of patriotic music.
“If you’re near your car, cut your radio on so everybody can hear it,” Carpenter said.
WRGC will also be showgoers’ source for updates in case of bad weather, as rainy afternoons tend to push the display later than nightfall. If the show is totally rained out, an alternate date will be announced later on, he said.
This year’s display will include heart shapes and Saturn shells – bursts surrounded by a ring like the planet’s – and patriotic patterns that Carpenter won’t yet reveal.
“We’ve got close to 2,000 booms and bangs in the whole show,” Carpenter said. “We’re real excited because we’ve increased it a little bit from last year.”
Carpenter promises that a large number of fireworks will be shot to the 150-foot level, an elevation that will highlight the Courthouse with festive light.
“The Courthouse is one of the most unique places in Western North Carolina,” he said. “And Sylva is a big bowl, like a stadium. You have a big stage, that’s basically what it is.”
The best place to view the show is Main Street – as long as onlookers place their chairs beyond Wachovia Bank, where the safety perimeter ends – but lots of folks choose other vantage points, Carpenter said.
“When I get on top of the Courthouse to secure the area and turn the lights off, you can see the little barbecues everywhere, and the lights of cars lining the four-lane,” he said.
Gazing down on the patchwork of people who gather is a great way to mark the day of democracy, which also happens to be Carpenter’s birthday.
“Fireworks an artistic way to celebrate life,” he said. “And in the United States, they’ve become a statement of patriotism. This year especially, we want to celebrate people who have made a commitment to freedom.”
The $6,000 display will be sponsored by the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, the Travel and Tourism Authority, the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, the Town of Sylva, the Sylva Herald, Jackson County Recreation and Parks Department and Sylva Partners in Renewal.
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