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PROVO — Ever since she was a little girl, Brandalee Streeter has come to the America's Freedom Festival Grand Parade every Fourth of July to see the colorful, patriotic celebrations.
Now, she brings her own little girls, and her favorite part is seeing her daughters get excited whenever a float carrying a city's pageant winners comes by, because they love to see the "princesses."
"I think this is one of the best Fourth of July celebrations in America, and we love to be a part of that," Streeter said. "We're so grateful the Freedom Festival puts this on, and we're grateful that the community comes together."
Thousands of Utahns gathered along Provo streets and sidewalks Wednesday morning to celebrate the holiday and watch the Grand Parade. The parade is billed as the largest in Utah and attracts about 300,000 spectators, according to the festival's website, freedomfestival.org.
"We just appreciate people knowing that everything we do is positive and good," said Paul Warner, executive director of America's Freedom Festival. "We want it to be a great time for our community."
This year's highlights included a couple of giant floating balloons — Poe from "Kung Fu Panda" and Elmo from "Sesame Street"; Utah Gov. Gary Herbert in a limo; Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi in a horse-drawn carriage; several local high school marching bands; colorfully decorated floats with themes like giant toucans, oversized desserts and medieval fantasy; missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; one of the new futuristic-looking Utah Valley Express buses, which will start operation Aug. 13; and three LGBTQ groups that were previously denied entry into the parade.
Warner said the festival wasn't trying to be discriminatory earlier this year when the groups were initially rejected.
"We came to an agreement where they realized we wanted this to be a Fourth of July celebration and not an issue parade," Warner said. "So they were willing to make some adjustments to their willingness to fly the red, white and blue."
Erika Munson, co-founder of Mormons Building Bridges, said this is the third year her group has applied to be in the parade. The group's float Wednesday was themed "Utah Honors LGBT Veterans: United We Stand," with some of those veterans on board and others pictured in large photographs.
"These veterans are perhaps one of the prime examples of Americans putting country before self," Munson said. "They had to hide who they were."
At the meeting last month between the rejected LGBTQ groups and the festival committee to try to hammer out an agreement, Munson said there were high emotions and tears.
Then, one of the chairmen reached out to help make it possible, she said.
"We said, ‘If you can help us out with funding, we're happy to do a float,’" Munson said. "The chair said, 'I will donate the money out of my pocket.' That was pretty amazing. We walked away with all the LGBT groups admitted."
Out of the five LGBT groups admitted, three ended up participating in the parade: Mormons Building Bridges, Encircle and Provo Pride.
Seth Ellsworth, who walked with Encircle in the parade, said the controversy over letting his group participate didn't make much sense to him.
"Anyone ought to be able to walk," he said. "We're grateful they finally were able to figure something out."
When Encircle members walked by in the parade, many spectators loudly cheered to show their support.
"I think any group that can celebrate America is certainly welcome in the parade," said Brandalee Streeter's husband, Brad, when asked about about the LGBTQ groups being allowed in the parade for the first time.
Other Freedom Festival events on Wednesday included a hot air balloon show, the Freedom Run, Freedom Days activities at the county courthouse and Stadium of Fire featuring the band OneRepublic and a fireworks show.
Warner said for the first time in at least two years the festival is anticipating the Stadium of Fire show to be sold out. OneRepublic has been on the festival's wish list of performers for the last several years, he said, and this year its board was able to work the deal with the band's producers. Email: mpark@deseretnews.com
