The celebration may have been a day early, but nothing was lacking at Holts Summit's Independence Day festival - the city's largest event of the year.
The celebration kicked off at 5 p.m. with a traditional flag raising in Greenway Park and was headlined by variety party band Kricket Alley. The music continued until the firework display, which started around 9:45 p.m., lit up the night sky and brought the event to a close.
Seven food vendors sold a variety of items including barbecue, funnel cakes and potato tornadoes. Churches, businesses and organizations put up booths at the event while pony rides, two bounce houses, face painting and barrel tractor rides could be found for children.
Holts Summit Mayor Landon Oxley said the city schedules the annual celebration for July 3 to not compete with events in Jefferson City or Fulton, and it pays off with growth every year. Holts Summit has tried to keep up with the growth, Oxley added, expanding the area for the celebration and spending almost $5,000 to upgrade sources for electricity.
"We try to budget everything we can, which we do, and we upgraded as much as we can with the electrical and with vendors, getting more and more vendors every year," he said. "And even now safety, we've got so big now that we've upped our safety we've got a mobile command unit, we've got the fire department here, we've got an ambulance ready. You know, we just keep getting bigger and bigger, and that's a good thing. You hate to go backwards the other way."
Oxley said the event is not an "overnight plan-and-go;" planning began in January. With all the work to organize vendors and the resources for the celebration, Oxley said he "can't brag on the staff enough."
Even with the planning, Oxley said the city still tries to learn from previous years to make future events better. This year, it was the car show to improve upon, which only garnered a few cars because the city added the show late and didn't get word out early enough.
"I'm learning from (the car show) because, I don't know how many cars there are - last I checked it was five, but it was such a short notice," Oxley said.
LP Cook III, a resident of Holts Summit and pastor at Union Hill Baptist Church, said the event is great for socializing, but the fireworks don't hurt either.
"It's an opportunity for our town to get together but they also have just about the best fireworks display I've ever seen for a small town, it's incredible" Cook said. "So, people turn out, opportunity to come hang out with something that's distinctly Holts Summit."
The fireworks display featured some new additions this year, Oxley said, including a minute-long story about Francis Scott Key writing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and a rocking performance of the song by a group of veterans who served in Afghanistan.
"With raising the flag I want a traditional national anthem," Oxley said. "But with starting the fireworks off, you know, it's like hey - let's just start it off right and get things rocking."