Harlan Kirgan
The July 4th fireworks show at the Eunice Recreation Complex would cost up to $50,000 if staged anyplace else.
That’s one reason to put the 9 p.m. fireworks display on your event calendar.
You’ll probably be hard-pressed to find a better display in the area on the Fourth of July.
Another reason, particularly if you’ve seen the show before, is the expert pyrotechnist and former mayor, Kenneth Peart, is promising a surprise to end the show he stages.
On Thursday, Peart was at his shop on Maple Avenue putting fuses together as he assembled the show’s more than 3,000 shells. The official name on the shop is Peart Enterprises but some call it the Smiley Center.
Peart is the guy who brightens the Christmas parade with a Smiley train.
There’s smiley faces all over his shop.
Peart smiles and laughs a lot for a guy with a showy explosive side.
Peart has executed the Eunice fireworks show since the Chamber of Commerce stopped in 1981, according to a previous story.
He says, “Close to 30 or better and I’m still alive,” about how long he has done the Eunice show.
“I remember when I got my expert rating. I said it wasn’t much between a master’s rating and expert. I said, ‘What’s the difference?’ You’re still alive,” he said.
“I started this many years ago when it was out at the college,” he said.
The Fourth of July celebration then included a fly-in at the airport, mostly ultralights, followed by the fireworks display.
The event eventually became too much and the pilots wanted to be home for the Fourth, he said.
The showed moved to the Northwest Pavilion.
“May show got too big and the fire marshal came and he said ... ‘with the size stuff you are shooting you don’t have enough room over here.’”
The state rule is for every inch-size of shell the crowd must be 87 feet away. Peart says his personal rule is 100 feet for every inch size shell.
After that, the show moved to the Eunice Recreation Complex on Sittig Road.
Peart has help preparing the shells, roundish brown objects ranging from 3 to 8 inches in size. The shells are fitted with fuses. Eventually the shells loaded into tubes and mortars for firing.
“The most work is in here,” he said. “I have to fix each one of these with fuses individually.”
The work started on Thursday and Peart expected help to arrive for the prep work through to the show.
“One year we did it with two of us. We were dead. I mean we were dead tired. We can’t do that anymore. Our tennis shoes are getting older,” he said.
If Thursday is like other show nights, Peart expects it will be hot and he and his crew will end soaking wet from firing off hundreds of rounds.
The fireworks are ordered in January or February from a company in Poplar Buff, Missouri, he said.
Peart travels to Missouri to pick up the fireworks, which is just one of the chores involved.
“I don’t charge the city anything,” he said.
Peart’s volunteer effort is not insignificant. He estimates a similar show would cost $40,000 to $50,000 to stage. The city pays about $17,000 for the fireworks, he said.
“Let me put it this way. A show like we are going to put on, the people in Missouri, I used to work with them, and they tell me that nobody the size of Eunice puts on a show like this. This would be close to a $50,000 show. The city doesn’t pay half of that,” he said.
Peart’s estimates are to be taken seriously just as his expert rating. Peart has worked with one of the nation’s top fireworks company, Zambelli Fireworks Manufacturing Company in New Castle, Pennsylvania.
His first show with Zambelli was at the Kentucky Derby. He did a show outside Yellowstone National Park for the Fourth and several shows at Philadelphia.
Last year, Peart, 74, put the Eunice show on despite breaking his foot in fall from a trailer loaded with tubes used to fire fireworks.
There are no rain dates for the show. So, if it rains Thursday, the public will have to wait for next year.