Faith gears up for Fourth

By Kathy Chaffin

kchaffin@salisburypost.com

FAITH — With the Fourth of July falling on Sunday this year, the big question is whether this town’s annual parade and fireworks will be held on Saturday or Monday.

The answer is Monday, says Johnny Love, who is coordinating this year’s parade with his wife, Beth. “Anytime it falls on Sunday, we always go to Monday because it’s the legal holiday,” he says.

What that means for people attending the 64th annual Faith Fourth of July festivities is there will be eight days to celebrate instead of the usual week.

Randall Barger, who is coordinating the entertainment, says this year’s celebration is dedicated to the late Charles “Major” Carter, who passed away Jan. 26, and Joanne Holshouser, who passed away on March 8. Both of them worked tirelessly for years helping to put the Faith Fourth festivities together, he says.

Love says this year’s parade — scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday — will begin with a flyover of the parade route by a stunt pilot. Following that will be a first for the parade, a marshmallow drop.

Pilot Kim Barringer, who lives in Faith, had done one for an event at Dan Nicholas Park, Love says, and offered to do one for the Fourth of July parade. Barringer will be dropping lots of white marshmallows along the parade route with a mix of colored ones, which can be redeemed for a free ride on a Smokey Mountain Amusement attraction.

Though he says he has no idea how many marshmallows will be dropped, Love says he asked Barringer to include several hundred colored ones.

Another new attraction this year is Huck’s Gem Mine, according to Gloria Wilhelm, who is coordinating the vendors. Owned and operated by Judy and Larry Davis of Cherry Log, Ga., the attraction offers — for a price — a chance at finding a gem.

A chainsaw woodcarver will be demonstrating his craft for people attending the festivities, and the Windstream Lifetime Tour will be rolling in as well. Easily spotted with its 1953 neon green pickup, the Windstream team will be at the celebration June 28-30 and again on July 4 with a giant Plinko game to play for the chance to win prizes.

A popular competition that will be missing this year is the Apple Ugly Eating Contest, which drew competitive eaters from all over in 2008 and 2009 including such crowd favorites as Dale “Mouth of the South” Boone from Atlanta and Keatin “Thunder” Shelton of Salisbury. Barger says Apple Baking Co. of Salisbury — which sells the 4-ounce, 440-calorie pastry — decided not to sponsor the contest again this year.

“They just decided not to do it,” he says. “We were hoping to keep that going and get bigger and bigger, but I&# ;guess they went in a different direction.”

The celebration will start at 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, food booths will open at 4 p.m. and rides at 6 p.m. On Monday, July 4th, food booths and rides will be open from noon to 5 p.m. Entertainment will be held nightly.

Monday night is Dollar Night with all rides $1. Wednesday is Food Lion MVP Card Night, during which people may show their MVP card for $5 off the $20 cost of an armband.

There will be plenty of food vendors, Wilhelm says with such favorites as elephant ears by Elsie Beaver and her daughters, Nancy and Beth; fruit smoothies and fried potato and onion ribbons by Mike Beaver; corn on the cobs by Jeff Beaver; SnoBiz snow cones by Kristen and Robert Friel; Italian ice dolse by Jason Slusser ; and corn dogs, French fries and iced tea by Bobby Jenks.

In addition, the Faith Jaycees will be barbecuing 120 20-to-30 pound shoulders today and an additional 100 shoulders the following Sunday before the main celebration on Monday.

Barger says one change in Monday’s fireworks show is that Main Street will close at 9:30 p.m. from St. Paul’s Church Road to Charlie’s Ice Cream and Groceries. After that, people will have to park on the back streets to get to Main Street.

“We’ll have detour signs for people,” he says, “but it would be a big help if people will make their plans to come into town a little earlier.”

Barger says people who grew up in Faith have watched the celebration grow over the years. “We’re a little town of 700,” he says, “and we have during the week over 50,000 or 60,000 people come in here.”

Proceeds from the Fourth festivities goes to the sponsoring civic organizations — the Faith Civitans, Faith Jaycees, Faith American Legion Post No. 327 and the American Legion Auxiliary Unit No. 327 — to support local causes. “Without this fundraiser,” Barger says, “we wouldn’t be able to do what we do for the children and people with medical bills. We just help in a lot of different ways.”

Contact Kathy Chaffin at 704-797-4249.

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