Organizers of Oak Harbor’s Fourth of July celebration are planning a 2015 event they believe will be a crowd pleaser.
Not only is a Navy jet flyover scheduled to signal the start of the late morning parade, the evening fireworks show is expected to be the most explosive in the event’s history.
Donations of $20,000 are earmarked for this year’s fireworks display, an increase from the $14,000 typically raised for the annual show.
“It’s exciting to watch the community come together and put on this kind of show,” said Christine Cribb, executive director of Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce.
The Oak Harbor Chamber and Oak Harbor Noon Rotary are working in partnership to organize the parade, which is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. July 4 and travel along the waterfront with a lineup of about 125 entries.
A treat this year is the return of a Navy flyover that has been absent from Oak Harbor’s Fourth of July celebration in recent years.
Flyover requests from the cities of Oak Harbor, Anacortes and Stanwood were collectively approved by the Navy and are among only 20 flyovers authorized for the entire West Coast during the holiday, said Anthony Popp, assistant public affairs officer at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
One NAS Whidbey’s EA-18G Growlers will perform the flyover above Oak Harbor.
“It should be quite an air show,” said John Geisenhoff, a Rotarian in charge of the Oak Harbor parade.
“It sends a huge message of how valuable the partnership is from NAS Whidbey to the community and the community to NAS Whidbey,” Cribb said.
Oak Harbor’s parade generally draws a few thousand spectators who line the parade route that starts on Pioneer Way near the Seaplane Base, continues along Bayshore Drive and winds up back on Pioneer Way.
The Maui Avenue gate on the Seaplane Base is scheduled to be closed from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. July 4 to allow for staging of the parade.
The Torpedo Road gate will be open to access the Seaplane Base at that time.
The parade’s grand marshal will be Jay Turner, football coach at Oak Harbor High School.
Turner’s team got national attention for sportsmanship last season when it forfeited a divisional championship game to give Marysville-Pilchuck the division title and No. 1 seed to the state playoffs. The gesture was offered following a fatal shooting that occurred at Marysville-Pilchuck earlier that day.
Fourth of July festivities also will include a carnival, vendor marketplace, car show, dog parade, entertainment, family games and a DJ.
The day starts with a Rotary pancake breakfast from 7-10 a.m. at the Oak Harbor First United Methodist Church.
The vendor marketplace consists only of Whidbey Island vendors. It will take place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Whidbey Coffee is grand sponsor of the fireworks show, which is set to start at 10 p.m. and is expected to last 22 minutes, Cribb said.
Other major sponsors of the show include Davis Amusement Cascadia, Navy Federal Credit Union, Sherwin-Williams, the Oak Harbor Chamber board of directors, Oak Harbor Tavern, Windermere Property Management, 7-Eleven, Jeff Pleet of Edward Jones, Oak Harbor mayoral candidate Bob Severns and Oak Harbor resident Lois Louis.
