Perry ? After watching skydivers plummet to the ground at Perry Lake’s Fourth of July festival Saturday, 5-year-old Cody Hoover’s pretty sure he wants to jump out of an airplane someday.

“But I would rather have a life jacket on,” he said, smartly noting the lake several hundred feet away.

Chuck Myers of Topeka and his son Colby, 7, throw rocks into Perry Lake to pass the time before what was billed as the state's largest fireworks show. Saturday was the pair's third year coming to Perry to participate in the Fourth of July weekend celebration.

Cody’s 3-year-old brother, Chris, Lawrence, had more immediate plans.

“Now we want to see the fireworks,” said the blond-headed boy, dancing impatiently in a T-shirt with red, white and blue-clad turtles marching across it.

Chris wasn’t the only one eager to catch the belated round of nightworks, billed as the state’s largest display. Despite FBI warnings of possible terrorist attacks during the holiday weekend, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people vied for parking, lawn chair and boat spots at the annual celebration, which included a boat parade, KC-135 flyover, skydivers, musical entertainment and, yes, fireworks.

“We come out to see the big boomers,” Wanda Robbins of Ozawkie said.

She and her fiancrrived three hours before the pyrotechnics launch and staked out a spot across from the dam. They said they tried to make it to the Perry show every year and that terror threats weren’t going to keep them at home.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. I’d be a little more afraid to be on a boat out there,” Robbins said, gesturing toward the waters below the dam, where hundreds of boats had crowded in to catch the show.

“The only thing to fear is fear itself,” added Patrick Cummins, Robbins’ fianc
More than an hour before the fireworks began, Jean Martin aimed her eyes at the sky. The Perry woman draped her hand over her heart and sang along to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” as a skydiver floated earthward, carrying a 700-square-foot American flag.

A Member of the Kansas City Skydivers club flies over Perry Lake Saturday carrying a 700-square-foot American flag.

Although she has always considered herself patriotic, “having a son in active duty makes it more so.” Her 26-year-old son, a U.S. Marine, is due back from Okinawa, Japan, in 10 days.

Jefferson County Sheriff Roy Dunnaway said just about every sworn officer in the county was on duty Saturday evening, many helping with security at the lake. The county’s bomb dog was on hand as well.

Highway Patrol deputies were set to comb lake exits for drunken drivers throughout the evening, Dunnaway said.

“My jail will probably be full by morning.”

A KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft soars over Perry Lake during the lake's Fourth of July celebration. The Stratotanker, similar in size and shape to a Boeing 707, continued Saturday evening on a low path over Lawrence, resulting in dozens of calls from bewildered residents to police dispatchers and the Journal-World.