New venue, same old fun

A group of Kansas University graduate students - from the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Pakistan - watch the Independence Day fireworks show Friday at Sesquicentennial Point. The fireworks display by the Lawrence Jaycees was moved this year from the Kansas River to Clinton Lake.

For Wooseung Hong, it didn’t much matter if this year’s fireworks display was at Burcham Park or Clinton Lake.

Last year after watching the show on television, he made a promise to his wife and two children that next Fourth of July they would partake in this very American tradition.

So from a grassy field just below Clinton Lake’s Sesquicentennial Point, the KU student from South Korea sat on a blanket surrounded by 20 others from his home country and watched as fireworks danced in the sky and the crowd around him oohed and aahed.

There were the sparklers, the streamers, the sky-high star poppers, and in the end there was the ear-splitting grand finale.

“It’s very surprising. The color, the sound, the atmosphere of this place – it is very good,” Hong said.

Yes the location had changed, but the results were the same.

This year, the Lawrence Jaycees, who organize the annual display, moved the show from Burcham Park to Clinton Lake.

Jaycees president and event chairman Gary Saathoff said that with the exception of some parking problems when cars backed up as drivers waited for the gates to open at 8 p.m., the event went smoothly.

He estimated about 1,200 cars and between 3,500 to 4,000 people were in the park.

“That’s pretty close to what we had (at Burcham Park),” Saathoff said. “And there is a whole lot more room than we had in the park. People are more spread out and it is much safer.”

On the grassy fields, crowds were watching the display from lawn chairs, blankets and in the bed of pickups. Cars also lined the road at the top of the dam, and dozens of boats sat on the water ready for the show to begin.