America’s 250th birthday brought the heat to Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County.
Local residents and visitors sweated it out at festivals, flag-raisings and fire works across the area – with some events reporting lower-than-hoped turnouts on the hottest Fourth of July weekend in over a decade.
The temperature on Saturday peaked at 101 degrees Fahrenheit in Lexington, according to AccuWeather. Based on Lexington weather data from AccuWeather and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dating back to 2013, it’s the hottest Independence Day in that range by more than 5 degrees.
Annual celebrations like Lexington’s Children’s Bike Parade and the Balloons Over Rockbridge Hot Air Balloon and Music Festival still drew crowds, though. And a few new events were tied specifically to America's 250th anniver sary, including a time capsule opening in Buena Vista.
The holiday came shortly after the loss of Lexington Mayor Frank Friedman, who died Thursday after a sudden hospi talization. Several celebrations included tributes to Friedman.
Freedom Food Festival As usual, the celebration kicked off a day early in Lexington with Main Street Lexington’s Freedom Food Festival on Friday.
But this year was different. The event began with a speech from Steve Grist, president and CEO of CornerStone Bank, in memory of Friedman. Friedman had worked as a financial adviser with CornerStone since 2011.
The food festival featured celebrity chefs and local eateries partnering with seven nonprofit organizations: Boxerwood Education Association, the Community Table of Rockbridge, Yellow Brick Road Early Learning Center, Friends of Natural Bridge State Park, Rockbridge Habitat for Humanity, Rockbridge SPCA, and Rockbridge County High School’s baseball team.
Attendees bought festival tickets and traded them in for a meal of their choice from one of the seven nonprofits. Other organizations also raised money with stations along Main Street.
The Freedom Food Festival steering committee made water and misters available to festivalgoers to help cope with the heat. Several Main Street buildings were open to the public as “cooling stations,” according to the festival’s Facebook page. Lexington Presbyterian Church also allowed people to eat inside.
At Glen Maury
Buena Vista City Council member Ron Cash said he had hoped to see a crowd of 1,000 people when the city raised its new American flag at Glen Maury Park Saturday morning.
But Cash said the ceremony, which also included the opening of a time capsule buried in 1976, only drew about 200 to 300 onlookers. He said he wasn’t too disappointed, though.
“It’s really not about numbers,” he said in an interview with the News-Gazette. “It’s about spirit. And I felt like we had a really good spirit there yesterday.”
The ceremony on top of Inspiration Hill featured tents and mist-blowing fans to help keep people cool.
“If you feel like you need to get in the shade, get in the shade,” Cash told the crowd.
Air Force veteran and Parry McCluer High School alumnus Jay Brown raised the new flag on a temporary wooden flagpole.
Cash said in the interview that the plan is to replace the wooden pole with a permanent metal one and install a garden around the base.
Financing for the flagpole project relies on donations and does not use taxpayer dollars, Cash said. Donors had contributed about $1,500 before Saturday morning, some of which went toward the cost of the new flag.
Cash said this week that amount has now been more than doubled, and the project brought in an additional $2,150 over Saturday and Sunday.
“Immediately after the service, people came up to me offering to sponsor a star or a stripe,” Cash said.
Donors can pay $200 to sponsor a star on the flag or $500 to sponsor a stripe. With 50 stars and 13 stripes sponsored, the total would come out to $16,500.
Cash said that will be more than enough for the new flagpole, which should cost around $14,000. He said additional funding will go toward expenses that include replacing the flag annually.
At the same ceremony, Mayor Jesse Lineberry finished opening the time capsule from 1976. Cash, who had gotten the capsule ready for the ceremony the night before, said it had not been properly sealed 50 years ago.
“Altogether about two cups of water ran out of the time capsule in the process of opening it,” Cash said.
The capsule’s contents, which were mostly paper, were wrapped in plastic. But Cash said they still sustained water damage.
“Most of it was sort of double- wrapped even,” he said. “But that did not negate water still getting into it.”
Cash said he has frozen the papers to keep them from decaying further. The city will bury a new time capsule — to be opened in 2076 — on Labor Day.
The event also included a speech by Brown and live music from Kevin Wallace and a community choir led by Dr. Ben Gaughran of Southern Virginia University.
Buena Vista wrapped up its festivities that evening with a performance from the Party Crasher Band at Glen Maury Park and a fireworks display.
Bike Parade
Lexington continued another annual tradition when a huge number of children rolled down Main Street for the 41st annual Children’s Bike Parade.
Children 12 years old and younger got free flags, balloons and streamers to attach to their bikes. Under adult supervision, hundreds of children made their way from the Hub on Main Street to the Corral parking lot at Washington and Lee University.
‘Birthday Wishes For America’
Eric Wilson, director of the Rockbridge Historical Society, said he had expected families to stick around downtown after the bike parade to share their “Birthday Wishes for America” at a RHS event in Courthouse Square. But that wasn’t the case.
“It’s just too damn hot,” said Wilson, who also co-chairs the regional VA250 committee.
In fact, so few people showed up that Wilson and his team decided to cancel the event, which would have included readings from historical documents and long-time residents sharing their memories of the Bicentennial 50 years ago.
“The great thing is we recorded a lot of these sentiments and readings online,” Wilson said. “So we’ll be able to share that out.”
Even so, people who stopped by the square could still write down a “wish” for America’s future, get a free Sweet Treats cupcake and check out the 1976 Rockbridge Bicentennial Quilt. RHS posters displayed in Courthouse Square included information about the 1976 TransAmerican “Bike-Centennial,” a 4,250-mile ride that included 50 miles in Rockbridge County.
Wilson said the setup in Courthouse Square was just one part of a “three-year birthday party” that will include events stretching through 2028.
Upcoming RHS and VA250 events related to the American Revolution include a “history mobile” at Buena Vista’s Labor Day celebration, speakers from Monticello and the Museum of the American Revolution and educational series centered around books, films and music.
“While we’re often thought of as a kind of Civil War town, and that’s certainly important ... we have our roots in a Revolutionary moment,” Wilson said. “And this is the right moment to share that.”
Balloons Over Rockbridge The weekend’s weather was also inconvenient for the Balloons Over Rockbridge Hot Air Balloon and Music Festival, which had to cancel hot air balloon flights on Saturday and Sunday evening because of storms.
The number of attendees at the Virginia Horse Center’s Oak Hill Property appeared to be lower than usual, said Dee Miriello, co-chair of the Balloons Over Rockbridge board.
“Unfortunately we had a couple of storms, which hampered the attendance,” she said, “and the heat was brutal.”
Balloons still took to the sky both mornings. The festival featured 15 balloons, all of which carried passengers Saturday morning. Thirteen had passengers Sunday morning.
The proceeds from the event will benefit four charities: Unity 4 Kids, Meals on Wheels, Parry McCluer High School’s Mary Carol Moore Scholarship and the sex trafficking awareness program Street Ransom. Miriello said Tuesday she’s not sure yet how much the festival raised.
The festival also included a “kids zone” with activities for children, tethered balloon rides both afternoons and a “balloon glow” Saturday evening.
Sunday night’s balloon glow was canceled because of the stormy weather, but Miriello said the event Saturday night drew a decent crowd. Pilots inflated their balloons while still tethered to the ground and fired up their propane, putting on a light show for guests.
“It’s pretty, it’s dark. People like that,” she said. “A lot of people like to come out for that.”
The event’s organizers provided water and tents in response to the hot weather. One musical guest canceled because of the heat, but Miriello said four others stuck it out: Half Brassed Brass Band, The Mojo Parker Express, Hoss & the Special Soss and Midnight Blue.
“I think that’s the hottest we’ve ever had in the nine years that we’ve had the event,” Miriello said.
