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Great parade and fabulous fireworks

2 min read

To the editor:

Each year it is truly amazing how Greater Pine Island becomes one great big patriotic happy family.

This year, the parade stretched almost two miles long and proudly displayed floats that had never been seen before. Thank you to all of the participants and congratulations to the winners. All of the awards were presented at the Elks Lodge immediately following the parade.

Each child in the American Legion Bicycle Parade received a participant ribbon and the Elks provided their lunch. The awards for best decorated bikes were given to 10-year-old Stephanie Snyder for third place, 11-year-old Ryan Roy for second place and 10-year-old Aubrey Hicks for first place.

The winning plaques for the most creative and original parade entries were third place to Olde Fish House, second place to Pine Island Sound (Berg Family) and The Matlacha Hookers took first place.

At dusk, teaser fireworks started to appear over the pond at the American Legion. The American Legion Auxiliary treated kids of all ages to ice cream and everyone started to claim what they thought would be the pristine location to get the best view of the night’s festivities. Once the sun finally set, everyone enjoyed over an hour of amazing fireworks that lit up the sky!

The American Legion could not have hosted this day without the support from our community. Thank you very much for all of your generous monetary donations. This year alone, we were able to share over $12,000 worth of fireworks.

Finally, thank you to the volunteers and judges that donated their time so that others could enjoy the day: the Elks Lodge, the American Legion, Barbara Hosmer, Sharon Hastings, Robert and Ann Arnall and Ann McDonald. Our shooters for the night were Gene Gargano, Joey Donkersloot, Butch Waring, Mike Smith and Larkin Hosmer.

See you all next year!

For God and country,

Tom Ruscik

American Legion