Lewisburg veterans find deeper meaning in July 4 parade
Mark and Tamela Sprigg saw Lewisburg’s parade as public thanks for decades in uniform, with fireworks, a drone show and train rides tied to America250.
Mark and Tamela Sprigg watched Lewisburg’s 4th of July parade as more than a festive march past downtown storefronts. For the Union County veterans, the route carried a public acknowledgment of decades of military service and a reminder that the sacrifices they made over many years had not been forgotten.
That meaning helped set the tone for the Union County Veterans’ 4th of July Celebration, a nonprofit effort that honors veterans and community organizations across the Susquehanna Valley. The annual event is held in Lewisburg on the last weekend in June, and in 2026 it began Friday, June 26, with a concert at Wolfe Field, followed by a drone light show and fireworks at dusk. The centerpiece came Saturday, June 27, when the gala parade stepped off at 10 a.m. downtown.
The weekend program stretched beyond the parade route. North Shore Railroad planned two passenger trips from Hufnagle Park after the parade, at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., using NSHR 2238, described as America’s semiquincentennial locomotive, and LVRR 9052, the Veterans Unit. Visit Central PA also listed a big band concert, a monument ceremony, a picnic and other activities as part of the celebration, broadening the event into a full civic gathering rather than a single march through town.
That larger frame mattered in a year when Union County was already leaning into America250. The county website prominently featured an America 250th Celebration page in 2026, and the Susquehanna River Valley Visitors Bureau highlighted America250PA as a way to connect local history, events and community traditions to the nation’s 250th anniversary. In Lewisburg, that made the parade part of a wider public ritual of remembrance, not just another summer weekend.
Union County also has a Veterans’ Affairs office at the Union County Government Center in Lewisburg, where staff help veterans and their families apply for local, state and federal programs. For the Spriggs, and for the people who lined the streets downtown, the weekend’s value was not measured only in floats, music or fireworks. It was measured in the rare experience of seeing service named in public, at the center of the town’s holiday tradition.
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