Dauphin Island Times

USS ALABAMA Battleship Park officials are expecting a crowd of 50,000 or more for tomorrow night's finale fireworks display. Mobile Bay's annual Independence Day celebration and fireworks presentation will be held at the park on the evening of Tuesday, July 4th.

Each year the Press-Register and the City of Mobile celebrate the birth of our nation with a grand fireworks display. The 2006 event will be a celebration of community featuring new events, entertainment and a thrilling 30-minute fireworks presentation.

Festivities are scheduled to begin at 6pm with a presentation by Operation Home Front, a program of Volunteers of America. Murphy High School Band will play a concert beginning at 7:00pm with a salute to music. The band will also accompany the fireworks presentations, which will kick off at 9pm.

Original story

Event Details
Where: Battleship Memorial Park
When: Tuesday, July 4th 2006. The show starts at 6pm, fireworks at 9pm.
How much: Admission and parking are free after 5:30pm

Battleship fireworks could draw 50,000

The Fourth of July fireworks show to be held Tuesday night at Battleship Memorial Park on the Causeway will be the first big event staged there since the park was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina last Aug. 29.

"We want the people of Mobile and Baldwin counties to come out and see that we're back alive and well," said Bill Tunnell, executive director of the park.

About 50,000 people are expected Tuesday night in and around the park, which was closed for about four months after sustaining some $6 million in damage from Katrina. The park is well on its way to recovery even though repairs are not complete, Tunnell said.

The park was reopened to the public Jan. 9, but no large scale events have been held there since then, Tunnell said. Much of the damage has been repaired but the park's aircraft pavilion will have to be rebuilt and most of the vintage aircraft will have to be restored.

On Tuesday, starting at 9 p.m., a 25-minute display of fireworks will shower the night sky over the USS Alabama, a World War II battleship which is the park's centerpiece.

Some new pastel colors will be featured in this year's display, reported Bruce Volensky, a spokesman for Pyrotecnico, a New Castle, Pa.-based company that is providing the fireworks for the event for the seventh straight year. Volensky said fireworks shells will rocket up to 1,200 feet in the air and added that some crowd favorites from previous years will be back in this year's show.

The show is sponsored annually by the Press-Register and the city of Mobile.

The festivities will begin at 6 p.m. with a presentation sponsored by Volunteers of America Southeast honoring active and retired veterans. At 6:30 p.m., about two dozen Army and Army Reserve recruits will take the oath of enlistment at the park.

At 7 p.m., the Murphy High School Band will perform an old-fashioned concert on the lawn, according to event sponsors. The band will offer an array of music, including patriotic songs, some Broadway show tunes, as well as "traditional American music."

Band Director Stan Chapman said Buffie Peter will be the featured singer performing with the band. She has been a featured singer in shows put on by the Mobile Theater Guild and the Joe Jefferson Players. Read more