Fun on the Fourth

Published 12:00 am Monday, July 7, 2003

July 4 revelers sit in lawn chairs and on blankets to watch Friday night’s fireworks display.(C. Todd Sherman The Vicksburg Post)

[7/5/03]World War II veteran Robert “Rusty” Price sat on the bed of his pickup downtown Friday night to watch the purple, orange, red and green fireworks explode across Vicksburg’s skyline.

“That’s a crowd down there,” said Price, pointing at the hill climbing up from Levee Street and the old Levee Street Depot, the center of July Fourth activities that included fireworks, area singers and an orchestra from the University of Southern Mississippi. “This is a good seat here.”

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Price, 84, retired from Illinois Central Railroad in 1979, but before that, he often rode trains to the once-bustling depot.

Friday night, wearing a red, white and blue cap with a flashing red button attached, Price parked his truck on Grove and Walnut streets, blocks from the center of the festivities.

A group police estimated to be between 6,000 and 10,000 turned out for this year’s Vicksburg July Fourth celebration.

Shirley Cosby of Vicksburg sat in a lawn chair near Grove and Washington street and said the weather, cooler because of an afternoon downpour, was great for the holiday.

The afternoon rain had threatened the production, but volunteers with generators and power blowers dried off the stage in front of the depot enough for the show to go on, Mayor Laurence Leyens told the revelers before the show began at 7.

“(Organizers) said we could kill somebody with all that power going to the main stage,” Leyens said.

Hilbert and Fay Shiers sat with their granddaughter, Amanda, in the bed of their truck, watching people walk all around them. He said he saw people sitting in trucks last year, and decided his family would try it this year because of the soggy ground.

“There are no bugs high in this truck bed,” he said.

The production, which organizers had announced would be broadcast live on the city’s cable channel, 23, was not aired. No one said why.

Volunteer organizer Frances Koury of Vicksburg said the fireworks display and concert cost about $50,000. Sponsors were the City of Vicksburg, Ameristar Casino-Hotel and Coca-Cola Bottling Co.