Submitted by the Lopez Fireworks Committee

Lopez Community Fireworks has held special fundraising events for the past three years to raise funds for a new firing system. Thanks to the generosity of our community which spreads very wide, the whole fireworks show will be remotely fired from a safe location. To say the least we are very excited about this.

This is one of the largest all volunteer Fireworks shows. All volunteers, past present and future need be applauded. Some volunteers are made up of husbands and wives and whole families, girlfriends and boyfriends, children that have grown up with these fireworks and are now volunteers, even where only one person of a family is a volunteer the rest of the family has to step up, and these families should also be applauded.

Our first set of Fireworks will be a tribute to the late Dwight Walters; Dwight came on the scene a few years after the first fireworks committee was formed. When he got involved he was like a dog with a bone, he wanted to know everything there is to know about Fireworks. As he became more involved, our Display improved every year, he was amazing, full of ideas. He went to Fireworks conventions; got all of the Licenses he possibly could; and learned everything he could. While he was learning he taught others and got more volunteers involved in the actual work necessary to present our amazing display. Without him I doubt our fireworks would be what they are today.

Wayne Smith left us just over a year ago. He also was so instrumental in all of this and was part of the original formation of the fireworks. Sadly in his later years he was having extreme health problems and this slowed down his participation a great deal, but even then he was our champion!

From the beginning of the organization to now, we have been blessed to have so many people that believe in what we are doing.

Along with our growth came the byproduct of our endeavors. Popularity, which, even short lived in the days around the 4th, gives Lopez a boost in the economy. Many who come to see the Fireworks discoverLopez and return at other times of the year.

The saying it takes a village to raise a child; it took our community, which is wide spread, to make this all work.