Published: June 29, 2009 08:25 am      

Live entertainment, fireworks on tap for Independence Day

Both Richmond and Berea are planning entertainment and fireworks extravaganzas for July 4.

Admission is free to both.

The Richmond celebration will start 4 p.m. at Lake Reba Park. Singer Brittany Perkins will perform at the stage set up on the youth soccer fields until 5 p.m.

She will be followed by Bradlee Burtner and his band, who will entertain until 6 p.m., when Faded Blue takes over.

Josh Logan of Berea, who currently has a hit in the Cash Box Top 40 country chart, will take the stage at 7 p.m. and perform until 8:30 p.m.

That is when Exile, a local legend, will take over. The group, which started in Richmond in the mid-1960s as a teenage rock and roll garage band and then converted to a country music act in the mid- 1980s, will perform until 10 p.m.

The stage will darken as Pyro Shows of LaFollette, Tenn., lights up the sky with a traditional Independence Day fireworks display.

“We will have the biggest and best fireworks show in central Kentucky,” said Lori Murphy-Tatum, director of the Richmond Tourism Commission.

For more details about the Richmond celebration, call 626-8474.

Each year, the entertainment and fireworks at Lake Reba draws a crowd of more than 10,000.

In Berea, the entertainment will get underway at 5 p.m. under Guy Duerson Stadium of Berea Community School.

The locally based Freedom Rider Band will perform until 7 p.m.

The entertainment will resume on the main stage set on the field in front of the stadium at 8 p.m. when Robbie Bartlett of Louisville starts to sing.

Barlett and her “smoky alto voice” have been popular in Louisville night clubs since 1982.

More information about the Berea celebration can be obtained by calling 986-9402.

Both locations will feature food vendors.

At Berea, the celebration will include fire engine rides, large inflatables, a climbing wall, a pitching machine and a sand sculpture by Damon Farmer.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.