Melaleuca Freedom Celebration 1 day away

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - The 31st annual Melaleuca Freedom Celebration takes to the sky this Independence Day at the Snake River Waterfront in Idaho Falls. The celebration starts this Thursday at 10pm.

After 3 decades of lighting up the east Idaho skies, Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot still looks back fondly on his childhood Independence Day shows.

"When I was little my family didn't have much money. They were really poor," VanderSloot told Local News 8. "And so we had to concoct our own fireworks. We played with mullein bushes. We made sparklers out of mullein bushes"

And from those humble beginnings, VanderSloot says he hopes the people who watch the celebration can appreciate the story of America the firework celebration conveys.

"I hope people bring their radio in and tune in, to Classy 97.3," he told reporters. "That's all synchronized with the fireworks, note for note and show for show. We tell a little bit of the story of America and how it became what it is today and who sacrificed and how we got here..."

"This show is a message about them, a message about the history. So that we don't take their sacrifice and their leadership for granted."

The largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi doesn't come together on its own. It takes an expert.

In the case of the Melaleuca freedom celebration, that expert is pyrotechnic designer Tom Bates of Western Display Fireworks.

Bates has been working in pyrotechnics for over 20 years. He begins designing every show two years in advance, putting in orders for fireworks from all over the world. Which means he has a large selection to choose from.

"You really have the entire rainbow of colors to work with," said Bates. "You're not never bound to colors. I like really weird color combinations like blue, yellow, and purple. It kind of just blends itself together and makes a really cool effect in the sky."

Working through the show like an orchestra, Tom and his team choreograph over 18,500 shells to go off at the right time with the right song.

"A big song is in the show every year, God Bless the USA, which is one of the best songs ever created," Tom told reporters while setting up mortars for the celebration. "...There's certain songs in the show this year where you're just basically trying to get people to feel a little emotional about that part of the song, with the things perfectly synchronizing with the tone of the music."

The show lasts just over a half an hour, but in that time, the music and colorful explosions pay tribute to the sacrifice of the Americans who laid down their lives for freedom, says Frank Vandersloot.

"They paid for our liberty with their lives and their families made a terrific sacrifice," said VanderSloot. "We're hopeful that people will realize that and think about that, because freedom was never free. And we hope that we're raising the kind of leadership that those people give our country for future generations."