Independence Fest a blast

The Comanche Chamber of Commerce brought together the community on another Independence Day Fest at Comanche Lake on Saturday.

There were plenty of opportunities to have fun on the hot summer day with games, food, fireworks, entertainment, fire trucks and more.

“I think it went well,” said Laura Lewis, chamber president. “It felt like we had more people, but there were also more activities. A nice addition we haven’t had in the past was music. I know that a lot of the entertainment brought their own crowd, so we had a lot of people come just for the music, and I thought that was really cool.”

Lewis noted there were more children’s activities this year including carnival games, other game activities, bounce house and pony rides.

“I still feel like the parking sitution is a work in progress, but I feel it was better this year than last year,” Lewis said. “We did see more people enjoying the actual lake this year with swimming and fishing and we saw more boats out this year.”

This year’s activities were between the golf course and the lake. Last year, it was held below the dam.

“We’re thinking about switching up the layout a little for next year and work more on accomodating for parking, because that’s an issue every year,” Lewis said. 

Lewis said the feedback the chamber has received has been positive.

“I want to thank the Meridian Fire Department for letting the kids use the hose and the Comanche police and Comanche fire coming out for the kids to see their vehicles, too,” Lewis said. “I’d like to thank city manager Wayne McCasland for helping us rope off traffic that morning and helping navigate traffic that evening. There were a lot of hands on deck this year. There was a lot of working together with the city this year.”

Lewis said the chamber will hold a recap meeting soon to go back over the event and come up with ideas to make it better for next year.

“We have agreed to keep it at the lake next year, which is probably a question everyone has,” Lewis said.

The night was capped off by a fireworks show.

“It was shorter than last year, which is good, but I wish we would have waited until it was a little darker before shooting them off,” Lewis said. “But your pros and cons are if you waited, it would have been 10 o’clock before you left, so that’s always hard to gauge, but they were really well received. We really liked working with Rushing Pyrotechnics this year and then for Terrell Rather with his setup and organization of fireworks was appreciated.”