Kiwanis Division 3 Lieutenant Governor James Phelps of Santa Fe carefully loads a three-inch shell into a tube. Those working with him are, from left, Edward Schaller (on the ground, wiring in a shell); Stuart Schaller (in the white chair, selecting the next shell); and Morgan Schaller (standing, in red shirt, watching and learning.) Photo by Eric Schaller

The figures are in, and there’s no doubt now: The Kiwanis 2017 Fourth of July Fireworks show was a great success.

Moments after the show ended at about 10 p.m. on July 4, a small army of Kiwanis members, relatives, and friends started taking apart the firing-line equipment, cleaning up the parking lot where the shells had been fired, and loading the equipment on a large trailer to haul it back to the Kiwanis storage shed.

In an interview after the work was done, Fireworks Chairman Pat Soran said, “Everything went really well.” He noted that out of 4,000 shells that were triggered in the 30 minutes after the sun went down, only six failed to fire—two five-inch shells, and four three-inch shells. He said the performance set a record for the fewest duds in the history of Los Alamos Kiwanis fireworks shows.

There was another first as well. Soran’s grandson, Nate Hayes-Rich, a senior in high school, pushed the button to start the computerized show. He earned the honor by helping Soran unload all the shells when they arrived in Los Alamos in a Fireworks Production truck from Chandler, Ariz.

Asked how it felt to start the show, Nate said, “Exhilarating but nerve-racking. I didn’t want to do it too soon or too late.”

Kiwanis President Chuck Kooshian said, in a separate interview, “Just as the last note of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ died out, he pushed the button. It was perfect.”

Kooshian also said, “One of the things that impresses me about the club is that when there’s something to be done, somebody steps up to do it.” Once again, figures prove the point.

Club leaders had been concerned about having enough volunteers this year, but lists of names show that:

• 25 people showed up and worked four hours each on July 1 to “squib” (put electronic fuses into) each shell or group of shells for the show.
• 22 people worked two to four hours each at the Main Gate and/or the Walk-In Gate to Overlook Park July 4.
• Four people worked on the field. Some were there from noon until the end of the show.
• And 32 people worked on the firing line, some for as many as 14 hours on the Fourth.

The estimated number of hours these listed volunteers worked came to 383, but club leaders agreed that the list left out many hours that were hard to categorize—Rick Reiss’s many hours of work designing the show, for example; Soran’s many, many hours of preparation, ordering shells, unloading shells, etc.; and even the hours spent preparing and sending out news stories and compiling statistics.

The total number of volunteer hours probably came to 500.

There were several Kiwanis participation highlights:

• Kiwanis Division 3 Lieutenant Governor James Phelps of Santa Fe showed up in Overlook Park and worked hard for many hours on the firing line. He even managed to put in some time at the gate.
• Don Levine, a candidate for Governor-Elect in Kiwanis Division 3, and his wife, Maple, drove in from Rio Rancho to work the gate at the Kiwanis fireworks in Los Alamos.
• And the family of Kiwanis member Charmian Schaller had five people working on the firing line: Charmian; her husband, Stuart; her youngest son, Eric; her oldest son, Edward; and Edward’s oldest child, Morgan. Eric, the boss of this team, drove in from Albuquerque and brought a friend from the Los Alamos Ski Patrol, David Phillips, to Overlook Park with him. Lt. Gov. Phelps joined the team too. Together, they made up the “Mighty Threes”—a team that put together four “rails” of three-inch shells. They cheered long and loudly when they found out, at the end of the show, that for the second year in a row, their “Threes” (grouped together on the north end of the parking lot) had all fired. There were no duds. (The threes that didn’t fire were on the other end of the parking lot.)

The “bottom line” of success at the fireworks show has to be the money donated at the gates. It is essential because it is used to buy the shells for the next year’s fireworks show. Treasurer Cindy Eaton said this year’s total, combined with the vendor checks from the field and several substantial corporate donations that are still coming in, should be more than sufficient to pay for a 2018 show that is roughly the same size as the 2017 show—perhaps a little larger.

The amount in cash donations also provides a rough indicator of the number of people who came to the show. Almost 6,000 adults made donations. Add in a conservatively estimated one child for each five adults, and you have nearly 7,000 people who came to Overlook Park to enjoy “Fireworks and Fun on the Fourth.”

In an e-mail later, Kiwanis member Ann Hayes (Pat Soran’s wife) said, “Wow! We should all give ourselves a pat on the back. It was a lot of hard work, but these results are very gratifying, and we’ve heard lots of comments about how good everything was. I heard some vendors sold out of food!”

Kiwanis members were grateful to Los Alamos County for the outstanding work of its Parks Department, Police Department, Fire Department, and bus system employees (and many others) on the Fourth.

Members of the club thanked area vendors for their support. And they also thanked the thousands of loyal people who came this year (and in other years), donated money for the next year’s fireworks, and supported Kiwanis in its efforts to give the community a safe and delightful Fourth of July celebration.

Now if we could all work together to find a way, somehow, to speed the exit of the crowd out of the park after the show. One exit, it seems, is just not enough….