4th of July in Tehachapi thank you

The City of Tehachapi would like to thank all of those that made this year’s All-American 4th of July Festival and activities a tremendous success.

Special thanks to our title sponsor Alta One Federal Credit Union for their support of the All-American 4th of July Festival. The day started with a successful All-American 5K presented by the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Park District which included a ticket to the Ed Grimes Memorial Pancake Breakfast benefitting the Tehachapi Warriors Football program. This is a huge undertaking involving several coaches, players, administrators and the Tehachapi Warrior Booster Club. This year’s breakfast generated over $5,000 for the football program.

Gale Caldwell and the board of the Tehachapi Valley Arts Association provided another wonderful slate of vendor offerings, and the Tehachapi VALLEY WRESTLING CLUB had a tremendous afternoon with a successful beer garden, featuring several local wine and beer options, while also raising funds for their youth wrestling program.

While there were a few changes on the main stage for music, Django Stauffer filled in brilliantly as the opening act, as did Marcus Coates who belted out an inspiring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner as part of the presentation of colors. Both Stauffer and Coates were last minute additions to the festival, but each added to the day in an extraordinary way. Coates is a retired United States Army Ranger and serves as a wrestling coach for the Tehachapi VALLEY WRESTLING CLUB, as well.

Thanks to the children who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. We are collaborating with community partners in hopes of potentially returning the 4th of July children’s parade to our offering of events next year. Special thanks to the American Legion Post 221 Honor Guard for their presentation of colors at noon, the American Legion’s Wall of Valor at the gazebo, along with The Loop newspaper and Waste Management for their partnership of the festivities.

Both Ryan Sillifant and Muleskinner Revival provided two wonderful sets of music to conclude the afternoon, which was filled with great food by a variety of vendors that brought amazing culinary treats to Tehachapi. Each one was very thankful for the turnout and the support of the community.

The Tehachapi High School Cheerleading teams also raised over $1,500 in food sales to help benefit their competition cheer season coming up in 2022-23.

Following the festival, the activities shifted to the Tehachapi Event Center and Rodeo Grounds, where Tehachapi Mountain Rodeo Association entertained another sold out crowd to the Benz Bad Bulls, brought to you by the Benz Family. The entertainment in the arena was top notch and continues to get better each year. It took several volunteers and countless hours of prep to get the facility ready for another outstanding event featuring some of the top bull riders in the world.

The evening culminated with the annual fireworks display, this year the show was larger than ever with an epic grand finale that will be tough to top in years to come. Thanks to our fireworks contractor Zambelli Fireworks for pulling off an amazing show in a safe and efficient manner. Several cities in Southern California were forced to cancel their displays due to dealings with vendors that ran afoul of the State Fire Marshal, we thank Zambelli for being one of the outstanding companies and for sending us a professional crew each year. There was plenty of prep work to the fireworks site, as well thanks to the efforts of the Tehachapi public works team and the Kern County Fire Department who executed a controlled burn of the area to mitigate fire potential.

The men and women of the Tehachapi Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Kent Kroeger, did an outstanding job of protecting the public during all the events. Their proactive approach to community policing created a collaborative and cooperative relationship with the public which helped the day conclude without any major public safety incidents.

We have already started planning next year’s festivities, as they tend to grow each year with the number of residents and visitors that appreciate the Tehachapi way of celebrating Independence Day. We will make a few improvements and look forward to once again providing an appropriate all-American celebration that represents this community and is worthy of honoring our freedom and those that sacrificed so much to make it possible.