“Liberty Lights” - Independence Day Celebration in Council

On the Fourth of July, Council celebrated the birth of our nation in style! Independence Day in this small town is always a big event, and this year was no exception! The Independence Day festivities are by far the biggest event put on by the Council Chamber of Commerce each year. This year the theme for the celebrations was Liberty Lights!

​ The morning on Independence Day started with a Flag Raising Ceremony where Cheyenne Bennion sang the National Anthem at City Park, while there was also a community breakfast going on at the Council Community Church, which over 200 people showed up for! Throughout the day there was a Vendor Market going on downtown in the park, organized by Rachel Casey, with food, drinks, and a variety of goods for sale. The real crowd, though, didn’t start to arrive until before the parade, which kicked off the series of events that draw huge numbers of people to town each year. Chamber of Commerce Board member Cheyenne Bennion was in charge of the parade this year for the first time, she was one of several people new to organizing the major events of the day. The parade was great and involved a number of floats from local organizations and businesses, as well as all of the porcupines! After the parade came the World Famous Porcupine Races, a Council tradition. David Church took over organizing the event this year, and it was a big one! There were 13 porcupine teams, a huge turnout compared to the previous year. The winning porcupine was called Bunks with his handlers Kyle Lynch and Caleb Corse, followed by Thaine and Jasper Bauer and their porcupine Thor in second place, third was JR Cunauary and Bentlee Freedman with Damascus. One thing the Council Chamber of Commerce did this year was give a hat to each of the handlers who participated. “They were really happy to get those hats,” said Chamber of Commerce president, Katie Church. There was a huge crowd for the porcupine races this year, and the Chamber of Commerce sold out of all their merchandise, except for toddler shirts, within the hour (toddler shirts, 12 months to 5T are still available at Huptye in Council).

​ After the porcupine races, the Saw Contest did return this year, despite not having an event coordinator for some time. Ryan Hatfield eventually was “voluntold” he was doing it, and they ended up getting a plethora of support and donations from the community at the last minute, and were able to increase the number of prizes and contests. Rick Paradis won Large Saw and Odin Freedman won Medium Saw, both of them won new chainsaws. They also added a Youth Wood Split, a Bore Cut, and Cookie and a Beer Cutting contest, where contestants had to cut a cookie with an open beer on top, and place it on another log using only their chainsaw without spilling the beer. Hatfield did an excellent job putting on the event!

​ Because at first there was some concern there wouldn’t be a saw contest this year, the Council Chamber of Commerce started looking into some alternative entertainment for downtown during the vendor market, and found a band who wanted to come and play during the festivities. The band Braid came down from McCall and ended up playing throughout the evening instead, since the saw contest did continue. “I think people really enjoyed that,” said Katie Church. Dale Fisk organized everything for the band.

​ The Friends of the Library took over the kids area this year, and were able to use it to help raise funds for the Council Valley Free Library. They had bounce houses and a giant water slide, lots of games and activities, walking tacos, and drinks for the children available throughout the event. Courageous Kids Climbing, an organization from McCall, came to set up an obstacle course and was very excited to be there. New this year, they also gave parents the option to drop their children off to play under the supervision of their vetted volunteers. The event ended up bringing in around $1500 that will mostly be going to help support the Libby fund at the library. “Our team worked out really well, we had fun, we did good,” said Friends of the Library Board member Ryan Baldwin, who is also on the Chamber of Commerce board and helps with many of the Chamber activities. “There’s no way I could do it without her,” Katie Church said about Ryan.

As the crowd gathered towards evening at the school, Katie Sheldon, who will be the new music teacher for the Council School district, sang the National Anthem for everyone before the fireworks display. Almost all the fundraising and donations the Chamber of Commerce receives throughout the year end up going to support the fireworks, they are definitely the biggest expense and they keep going up every year. All the proceeds from the Porcupine Race Calcutta and from the Chamber merchandise sales go towards fireworks. Katie Church, Chamber president, said they met their goal for donations this year. “We did fantastic!” She said their goal is to do an even bigger show for next year. To help support this, they have canisters for donations out at Dad’s Place, M&W Market, Shell and Cenex in town.

​ The Fourth of July is a unique and important celebration, and Council embraces the traditions of the past to honor our independence. It takes a special community to put on such a big event, and there were many volunteers and supporters through the community, like Bill Brown, who supplied all the trash cans and picked up all the garbage afterward downtown, to Katie Church and Shani Smith, president and Vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, who were doing so many more things behind the scenes to put on the celebration, and especially, to the community, for all of their support. “Thank you everyone who donated their money and time and talent!” said Katie Church.