FIREWORKS WILL LIGHT UP RIVERFEST SKY

No Riverfest celebration would be complete without a fireworks show. And that suits Don Strohmeyer just fine.

As chairman of the Riverfest fireworks committee, Strohmeyer gets a charge out of the festival's fireworks. In fact, Strohmeyer has been around fireworks displays for 44 years, dating back to when he was a child growing up in Kansas City.

Strohmeyer's father worked for a fireworks company at one time and Strohmeyer used to help shoot off the fireworks at various events.

"When I first moved here (about 25 years ago), I used to shoot them for the (Cape Girardeau) Jaycees," recalled Strohmeyer.

These days, Strohmeyer no longer shoots off the fireworks. But he has a big hand in seeing that the Riverfest fireworks show goes off with a bang.

The fireworks show, regularly a highlight of the annual festival, will begin at 9:15 p.m., Saturday It is sponsored by River Eagle Distributing.

This year's fireworks show will last "a half hour or more," said Strohmeyer, and should be "the biggest one ever."

The fireworks will be launched from a site on the river bank along the floodwall just north of the Riverfront Park.

Strohmeyer said that spectators should be able to view the fireworks display from anywhere in the downtown area this year. The courthouse park and the terraces in front of the Common Pleas Courthouse should prove "a good viewing area," he added.

Strohmeyer said that the area immediately north of the Broadway floodgate, on the river side of the floodwall, will be barricaded to keep spectators away from the rocky area where the fireworks will be discharged. The closest spectators will be about 100 to 150 feet from the launching site, he said.

"It (the site) is all rock," he explained. "What we plan to do is bring in gravel and sand to level it off" for the fireworks).

Strohmeyer said the site met with the approval of Cape Girardeau fire officials.

Fireworks are not cheap; this year's display will cost over $6,000, he said.

The fireworks show will be handled by Zambelli Internationale of New Castle, Pa., one of the premier fireworks companies in the world, Strohmeyer said.

The Zambelli family has been called "the first family of fireworks" and has been lighting up the nation's skies for almost 100 years in such diverse places as New York Harbor for the Statue of Liberty celebration and President Bush's vacation White House in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The company has handled fireworks displays for a variety of events, ranging from the return of the hostages from Iran to the 1982 World's Fair.

It has presented fireworks displays for every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy, including the inaugurations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

The company annually handles the elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display at the Washington Monument.