Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
After a skipped year, the Fourth of July fireworks show is back on schedule once again.
Ken Faircloth, commander of the Otto Walker Post 49 of the American Legion, told the Monticello News last week that his group plans on holding the popular event on Monday evening, July 4.
Faircloth said the fireworks show and associated activities will take place at the old high school football field off Water Street, with a startup time of 6 p.m. The event, he said, will include live entertainment, military vehicles on display, an appearance by the JROTC Color Guard, and a concession stand that will sell such items as hot dogs, chips and sodas.
“We will be doing it again at least for this year,” Faircloth said, noting the difficulty involved in sponsoring the annual event.
It costs about $15,000 to put on the show, he said. And while the county contributes $5,000, and the city another $2,000, it leaves it for the Legion to raise the remaining $8,000 through donations from businesses and others. Which fundraising is growing harder to do, he said.
Ashley Pyrotechnics Inc., a Tallahassee-based company, will be doing the fireworks show.
Last year, the event had to be cancelled because of a combination of the pandemic and a lack of the pyrotechnic materials that go into the creation of the fireworks.
The contractor, Faircloth reported at the time, had told him that the products were literally “on a slow boat from China” and not expected to arrive in the U.S. until August at the earliest. As a consequence, the fireworks celebration last year was postponed until Veterans Day, Nov. 11.