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- Jun 28:
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- Light up the sky: Here's your guide to Independence Day celebrations near you
Tooele » At 6:54 a.m., six minutes before the Chamber of Commerce breakfast officially was scheduled to start in Veterans Memorial Park here, flapjack flipper Kathy Sheehan proclaimed: "Yahoo! I need a pan. Pancakes are ready."
Good thing. Ron and Mary Baetz were already in line, eager for their $5 servings of hotcakes, sliced ham, scrambled eggs, hash browns and coffee, milk or orange juice. "I wouldn't miss it unless I was down," she said, meaning six feet under.
So began the Independence Day celebration in Tooele, one that Mayor Pat Dunlavy later declared to be the state's best. "The Fourth of July is special all over the world, but especially in Tooele, because we're the
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Other mayors may beg to differ. But Saturday's turnout provided Dunlavy with ammunition to support his claim. Not 20 minutes after the Baetzes got their breakfast, two-thirds of the seats flanking six rows of folding tables were occupied, and the line to pay was double-digit deep. It included 9-year-old Preston Berry, in his kerchiefed Cub Scout uniform, accompanied by grandpa Eugene Anderson, a Korean War veteran wearing his sergeant's uniform.
"I'm very proud of this uniform," said Anderson.
Breakfast was winding down and Main Street's sidewalks were getting thick with parade watchers when the first of 417 runners (and walkers) in a 5K race loped past. Jumping up and down and clapping her hands, 4-year-old Athena Marie Wolf shouted, "Daddy's the fastest ever" as her dad, Michael Wolf, raced past with Jeremy Schrubb right at his shoulder.
Maybe her daughterly devotion was a little overstated, but the 25-year-old Wolf did separate himself from the rest of the field to win the race by 34 seconds (in 17 minutes, 11 seconds). He then hopped into his 1973 Chevy Camaro, "Victory Red," with a 350-cubic-inch engine, drove it in the parade and then displayed it at a car show featuring
All in all, a pretty good day for Wolf. For Rich Delsigne, too. He came in about 410th in the race . First words after the finish line: "That's done. I won't ever do that again. I'm 63," he wheezed. "Three times the age I was when I graduated from Marine boot camp, to the day. That's why I had to do it."
Minutes later, the parade reached the park, where race organizer Karen Perry was using a megaphone to call the names of age-division champions, her voice often drowned out by passing marching bands, Air Force jets flying overhead, a dozen "Bikers Against Child Abuse" rumbling by and a rock band rehearsing The Monkees' "I'm a Believer" on a stage 50 yards behind her.
That stage later would be the center of attention as 250 dancers, ages 2 through 35, performed routines they had worked on for months. "I've been praying on my knees all morning that it wouldn't rain," said instructor Susan Trujillo, waiting anxiously for her girls' time to come after Tooele High School's cheerleaders finished leaping and bounding.
Her prayers were answered. The sun broke through cloud cover midway through the first group's dance.
Hundreds of onlookers cheered each troupe's routine while hundreds more weaved through an array of tents where they could get their faces painted, win goldfish or African dwarf frogs, or pay $1 to enter a motor home labeled "Hillbilly Sideshow" and see some "World Oditees."
And the truly adventurous could get their pictures taken sitting on a bull, right next to where rodeo tickets were being sold by preteen royalty MacKenzie Scott and Shalee Condit, tiaras adorning their cowboy hats.
With all that, and more, maybe the mayor was right.
