Small-town tradition wins big

From the grandstand, Dave Graham gives Liberty Lake’s Independence Day parade the professionalism usually reserved for lines of floats surrounded by skyscrapers and department stores.

But the parade and the other events that mark the Fourth of July in Liberty Lake are no big-city affairs. For one, Graham’s grandstand is the second-story deck on his house, and the parade floats that pass by are mostly golf carts, Radio Flyer wagons and baby strollers.

That’s the atmosphere parade watchers and marchers have come to expect.

“It’s no big to-do. It’s just a fun group,” said Harold Hughes, who moved to the lake in 1952 and was a grand marshal of the parade along with his wife, Joan.

Hundreds of participants on Tuesday lined the short parade loop or simply joined in. Afterward, many stuck around for an egg toss, a dip in the lake and an old-fashioned pie-eating contest. Later, there would be a concert at Pavilion Park and, of course, fireworks over the lake.

Graham said he announces the parade from his front yard for the kids.

“They were talking about what they were going to do in the parade three months ago,” said Graham, who once was the organist for the Spokane Indians. “They love to hear someone over the PA get excited about what they’ve done.”

At the end of the parade line, Eric and Jennifer Agnew pushed their children, Emily and Tyler, in strollers. Independence Day in Liberty Lake embodies the community spirit that makes them happy they moved from California, Eric Agnew said.

Emily “decorated the stroller and then we just found a place in line,” Eric Agnew said. “It’s just a whole day’s worth of events in your backyard.”

The Fourth has been a big day in Liberty Lake for a century or more with family gatherings, picnics and fireworks. Organized Independence Day events and fireworks displays, however, dwindled along with resorts around the lake in the 1970s, said Ross Schneidmiller, a lifelong Liberty Lake resident who has studied the history of the community.

A renewed emphasis on the Fourth started when the parade was created in 1989. Fireworks over the lake started again a year after.

Ava Humphries watched the parade from her son’s home. Her grandsons collected enough candy from passing floats to cause mild stomach aches.

“You see people that you haven’t seen all year,” said Humphries, who lives at a lakefront home where the family planned to gather to watch the evening fireworks.

With a microphone, speakers and CDs of patriotic music, Graham has acted as parade broadcaster for most of the 18 years the parade has gone by his home on Shoreline Drive.

“When you get done with the parade, plan to stick around and eat,” Graham advised the crowd, directing them to a Kiwanis Club meal served a block away.

“There is a little bit of something for everybody,” Graham said after the parade. “Every year we have people moving in, people that want to meet other people and get involved in the neighborhood. It’s the perfect way.”