Fireworks light up Lewisburg skies following early storm

By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item

LEWISBURG June 27, 2009 06:24 am

— Six hundred rockets and $7,000 went up in smoke as Lewisburg’s weeklong Fourth of July celebration continued Friday night with a spectacular fireworks show at Wolfe Field.
The show was in danger of being a washout when a flash thunderstorm passed through the Valley at 6 p.m.
“I was hoping the bad weather would hold off,” said Tony Cooper, executive director of RiverWoods, which sponsored the show.
It did.
Instead of rain, the skies around 9:30 were filled with rockets firing off cascades of brilliant colors, thrilling a crowd of more than 700 people who came from all over the Valley to watch.
“We were here whether it was going to rain or not,” said Dick Varner, of Mount Pleasant Mills.
Varner and his wife, Ruth, have not missed the Lewisburg show in seven years, he said.
“It’s not just the fireworks that bring us here,” Varner said. “It’s the family atmosphere. And the ragtime music before the fireworks.”
George Donner, of Mifflinburg, said he wouldn’t have missed the show for anything.
Sitting in a lounge chair with his family, Donner said he arrived at Wolfe Field about the time the rain began to fall.
“It’s just rain,” he said with a shrug. “We went to the home of some people we know until it stopped. This is such a purely comfortable evening. Totally relaxing after a day’s work.”
Shelly Hite, of Northumberland, didn’t know anything about Lewisburg’s annual fireworks show until she started working for an attorney in Union County.
“He told me about the show and I’ve been coming ever since, about three years now,” Hite said.
For others, the evening was a chance to play with children on the outfield grass, toss baseballs, frisbees and have a good time.
Miller Anderson had come from Milton to meet up with his brother.
“I moved here from Philadelphia and I work all the time in Williamsport, but I make time this day every year to play with my brother’s three kids,” Anderson said. “This is such a great celebration. It’s everything you want in small-town living.”

Celebration continues today
The Union County Veterans 15th annual Fourth of July parade is scheduled for 10 a.m. today in Lewisburg. A veterans recognition ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. at the President’s Grove, Loomis Street and University Avenue, Bucknell University. A picnic and band concerts get under way at noon at the President’s Grove and will feature the 28th Infantry Division Band from Hollidaysburg; the Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps, Reading; and the Fralinger String Band, Philadelphia.

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