Balloons Glow For America’s Birthday

Ridgeland celebrates July 4th with their annual “Celebrate America Balloon Glow” event.  Organizers say 20 hot air balloon teams participated.  About 20,000 people attended. 

“The economy has probably helped out our program,“ said Chris Chance, director of Ridgeland’s Department of Parks and Recreation.  “People are looking for things that are free, economical to do and certainly, it doesn’t get any more economical than coming to see Diamond Rio for free.“

The balloons, which have come in from all over the country, head to Canton on Saturday.  But some in the community are spending some of their own hard earned money to keep these big beacons in the sky.

“We all pitched in to help pay to bring this balloon this year because expenses have gone up,“ said Stephanie Nix, a member of RE/MAX’s Hot Air Balloon Team.  She says she’s been participating in the event for 12 years.

“It’s important that we have a lot of community support for events like this so we’ll keep the sponsors,“ she said.