The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

Local News

July 3, 2009

Fireworks lift off Saturday

T.J. ROYAL

The Town of Tarboro will be spending less money for a more spectacular fireworks show this year for its Fourth of July celebration Saturday.

That's according to Tarboro Parks and Recreation Director Jarvis Pettaway.

Compared to the $10,000 the town was prepared to spend on its display this year, Pettaway said Tarboro will save $3,500 by having S&W; Productions of Youngsville providing its first fireworks display for the town on Saturday.

"We're gonna have to go with the people who are going to give (us) the best deal" on the fireworks show, Pettaway added.

Rick Timberlake with S&W; said that out of the many new requests they receive from towns and cities to perform a fireworks display, Tarboro's "was the only new show we took on" this year.

Timberlake said his company is the same one that provided the fireworks display for Curtis Bearden's Christmas fundraiser for the late Thomas Parrisher, 19, who died in December.

Since Timberlake had heard comments about Bearden's fireworks being better than Tarboro's in years past, he added that this year, "your show is going to be even better than Curtis's."

Pettaway said the Tarboro fireworks display, launched from Tarboro High School with parking available there and at Riverside Plaza on Western Boulevard, would start "between 9 and 9:30 p.m." Saturday.

Timberlake, 60, added that the fireworks show for Tarboro would last around 18-20 minutes, since people's attention wanes the longer a show lasts, "the faster the show is, the better people hang with it."

Timberlake said he has worked with S&W; since 1972. The company does the fireworks displays for the Durham Bulls, the City of Raleigh and Capital Broadcasting. In years past, S&W; has done shows as far away as California, but limit them now to North Carolina and South Carolina, he said.

"We look at each show as a presentation. Each client gets a show done especially for them" when S&W; is providing the fireworks show, Timberlake said. Recently in Charlotte, he said the company did a one minute display to mark the beginning of an amateur sporting event.

From 2001 to last year, Tarboro had hired a South Carolina fireworks production company to perform its Fourth of July display.

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