Cedar City Set For Independence Day Festival

We live in a pretty awesome community. Cedar City is known for its vibrant community spirit and various events and celebrations throughout the year. We just saw that with the recently completed Cedar City Railroad Centennial. Like it always does, Cedar City shows up.

Now we get to prepare for one of the biggest events of the year as we ready ourselves for the Independence Day celebration coming up in just over a week. Parade, fireworks, party in the park and more to be a part of our day.

Beth Stephenson, president of the Cedar City Lions club joined us on the radio this morning to preview some of the activities of the day. As it has done for years, the Lions Club will host the morning parade and the activity in the park through the afternoon.

In keeping with the designation of Festival City, USA, Beth told us, “we are actually trying to promote all the activities as the Independence Day Festival. This is one of our crowning jewels of our community service.”

The first activity presented by the Cedar City Lions club will be the annual parade, and, as it has been for the last four years, the parade will actually be in two segments. “We will start of with a 'Spirit of 76' parade that is the pageant that is at the beginning of the traditional parade. That's at 9:30(AM).” Following the pageant presentation will be the remainder of the more traditional parade.

The parade will start at the corner of 300 West and Center street. It will proceed down Center Street to Main Street where the parade will make a left turn and head north ending at 400 North.

After the parade, “at the park...we have the Independence Day Festival at the Main Street Park. We're going to have all kinds of vendors, food trucks, we've got games with the fish pond, karaoke and Fun Time Inflatables, so it's a great time to get together and celebrate what we all have in common,” Stephenson told us.

The fifth year “Spirit of 76” pageant will feature a cast of over one hundred members on twelve floats. Cast members will be dressed in period costumes. A QR code available in local publications will give residents and parade watchers the ability to download a document that give a full description of each float in the pageant and an explanation of the importance of the events being depicted.

Beth also told us of some of the other events and service projects the Cedar City Lions club during the year and said, “everywhere you look there is a little bit of of Lions Club that's been throughout the ninety years we've been in Iron County.”

Of course, no Independence Day celebration would be complete without a fireworks display. The Cedar City Fire Department will present that display around 10PM on July 4^th. The fireworks are launched out by the Cedar City Regional Airport. Also the city has designated locations for the discharge of personal fireworks. You can get more information about fireworks by clicking here.

The Independence Day Festival looks to be a tremendous opportunity for area residents to remember the sacrifices and courage of those who were seeking independence to build a free nation, and at the same time have a joyful, fun community get together.

You can hear our full visit with Beth Stephenson below.