The best-ever Carnation celebration

Published 12:39 am Friday, October 3, 2008

Another successful Carnation Fourth of July celebration! I thought last year was outstanding with the amount of people that came and celebrated, but this year we outdid ourselves. We had the largest crowd in the history of the event to watch and enjoy the longest kiddie and grand parades ever. We also had the largest turnout for the race, with 290 runners this year; the most street merchants, with over 50 vendors lining the street; and over 50 participants in the Hot Rods & Harley Show.

Thank you to everyone who came to Carnation to help celebrate our nation’s independence. Thanks to everyone who gave donations towards the fireworks, it made a big difference. They were fantastic this year. Your donations were appreciated as they do go towards the fireworks display to help make this a great festivity.

Thank you to all the people who live on Morrison and Stewart streets for allowing me to set up the parade route in front of your homes once again. A huge thank you to the Tolt Congregational Church and Pastor Jeff Spencer for allowing me to have my parade registration on your lawn. Thank you to all the merchants in town for helping with the day’s festivities, and to the Carnation Golf Course for loaning us the golf carts.

A special thank you to all my parade helpers the day of the 4th: Joshuah Lisk, Jereme Farmer and Tim Sweany, who got up with me at 5:30 a.m. to set the parade route and then continued to help all day long. Thank you to Regan Doyle for helping with the parade registration, and to Kathleen Mehrens, Beth Walz and Nicole Pitts, for help during the parade.

Thank you to our first-year parade announcing crew of Jack Ballard, Steve Collins (last year’s grand marshall) and Stuart Lisk, my husband and major. You guys were awesome. A huge thank you also to the parade judges, Pam Werner, Dan Pflugraph and Dave Hunter, all school board members. Also, thank you to the city workers and the officers of the Carnation Police Department who put in a lot of time and energy.

The dunk tank was fun and an enormous success. Thank you to our “dunkees” who did a great job. I know the water was very cold for our grand marshall, Jon Fallstrom; Stuart Lisk, mayor; Scott Sterland, chief of police; Jim Frances, Carnation chamber president; Jereme Farmer and Joshuah Lisk, class officers for the class of 2006; Pat Grady, realtor; and David Kosorok, Scout master. You were all great sports. It was a lot of fun and I appreciate you doing this for the Fourth of July committee. A big thank you to the Carnation MOMs Club, the Red Wolves junior cheerleading group and Aaron Gremmert and his friends for helping with the fun park.

I would especially like to thank the committee: Steve Collins, treasurer and fundraiser; Kimberly Kosorok, secretary as well as jumping in where she was needed; Michelle Young and Mark Padgett, Hot Rods & Harleys plus T-shirts and raffle; Chris Iacobazzi, 5K Run; Pan and Scott Hillier, facilities; Julie Lemery, vendors; and Linda Adams, PR. All of these people worked extremely hard putting in long hours to ensure the day’s success.

We hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July. See you next year on July 4, 2004!

Kim Lisk

Carnation Fourth of July chair/parade and

entertainment chair

For all this week’s letters, pick up a copy of the Valley Record