:The Laurel Outlook:Big Story

“The Fourth of July fireworks display is a go,” Fire Company Fireworks Co-chairman Terry Ruff said Monday afternoon after a meeting with Laurel School Superintendent Josh Middleton.

Ruff, Middleton and the other Fire Company Fireworks Co-chairman Will Guenthner, called the meeting Monday afternoon to dispel community fears that the Laurel Fire Department's hallmark fireworks display, long billed as the state's “biggest and best,” might be canceled this year.

The Laurel Fire Department celebrates its 100th birthday this year. “None of us want the show to go away,” Ruff and Guenthner agreed. “Especially this year.”

The firemen have determined they can stage the display and overhead mortars in the Little League baseball fields and other portions of Thomson Park.

Middleton said the Laurel School District will construct some portable fence panels from fencing that has been removed from the old football field site to provide double fencing for security to accommodate the firemen's needs.

The stage of completion of the sports complex this summer is in question, so it is not known yet if the field and the stadium seating will be available for spectators this year or not. “When the project is completed, I believe it will be a ‘win-win' situation for the District and the firemen,” Middleton said.

The future of the annual fireworks display came into question when the School District announced plans to install a synthetic playing surface in the new football field in Thomson Park.

Since sometime in the 1970s, the firemen have used the football field to stage its fireworks display that draws tens of thousands of people to Laurel.

When the school board decided the new sports complex, approved last summer by Laurel voters, would have a synthetic playing field, firemen were faced with having to find a new place to stage the fireworks mortars and ground displays so the field surface would not be damaged.

“It was never our plan to displace the firemen and the fireworks display, Supt. Middleton said.

Both Ruff and Guenther agreed the change in location will be “do-able.”

Middleton said he has been meeting with the firemen for some time to figure out how to accommodate their needs and make them mesh with the District's plans for use of the sports complex. “We have just had to figure how to make things work for everyone involved. We're glad to be able to tell the community we believe we have done that,” he said.

Ruff agreed. “We never had a doubt it would happen. We just needed to finalize the solutions to the problems the changes created,” he said.

The firemen said the use of the Little League fields shouldn't impact regular league play, which is usually completed by July 4. Legion Baseball officials have also told the firemen that portions of the Legion ballfield could be used for spectator seating if necessary, Guenthner said.

The Laurel firemen fired more than 10,000 mortar shots at last year's show. That show was 52 minutes long. This year it will last at least an hour. “And this year's show, for the Fire Department's Centennial celebration, will be even bigger and better,” Ruff and Guenther concluded.