Towns make the most of July Fourth celebrations

Festivals and parades are springing up around the state. Fourth of July gunpowder is in the air. And whether it's a small town or Salt Lake City, residents are getting together in the good weather to celebrate the nation's birthday.

In South Salt Lake, the annual tradition of the Freedom Festival was buzzing with over 10,000 residents and non-residents. There were lemonade vendors and games for kids. Live music poured out of the speakers on the old Granite High School's lawn. People were grabbing seats on the grass for the best view of the fireworks show.

"It's really a valued tradition here in South Salt Lake," said Troy Bennett, parks and recreations director for the city. "Everybody looks forward to it and the same people help every year."

"I can come back here and see people I went to high school with," said South Salt Lake's mayor, Cherie Wood. "I can see people I've grown up with. … It's kind of like a mini-reunion."

The city spent $25,000 on fireworks this year, buying more than 10,000 bursts of light in the night sky.

The Fourth of July is no small event for South Salt Lake. And the same is true for Centerville, where parades and festivals are held throughout the weekend.

Friday night featured a family tradition so old that even the event veterans couldn't remember just where it got its start. The Children's Parade is an annual tradition for Centerville, where hundreds of kids decorate bikes and ride them through the streets.

In the line of hundreds and hundreds of bikes and scooters, an endless color pattern of red, white and blue swirled throughout the crowd. Whether it was streamers, balloons, beads or bows, no handlebar went undecorated. The parade had far more participants than onlookers, but the kids were excited all the same.

Jean Tillotson, a volunteer for the Children's Parade, has taken her children to the parade since they were little girls. Thirty years have passed and now her children have children of their own, and of course their kids are in the parade.

"There's a big parade in the morning they all get to watch but this one they get to be in," Tillotson said.

Michelle Call, Tillotson's daughter, helped her daughter Macy decorate her bicycle this year. Next summer, she will have two more kids in the parade. Call is in her fifth month of pregnancy carrying twins.