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Entertainment

Oldsmar continues Labor Day party tradition

With better weather than last year, the forecast calls for a dry and exciting Celebrate Oldsmar event.

By JANE MADDEN WELCH
Published September 3, 2005

OLDSMAR - Celebrate Oldsmar, the city's annual Labor Day weekend celebration, will be held today starting at 5 p.m. at R.E. Olds Park overlooking Tampa Bay.

Admission and parking are free. Attractions and food concessions attractions are $1. There will be games, pony rides and inflatables for jumping and sliding. The Big Kahuna Band will play in the amphitheater at the park at 107 Shore Drive W.

Fireworks begin at 9 p.m. Bring your own blankets, lawn chairs or coolers. No alcohol is allowed.

"We don't have a Fourth of July celebration," said Holly Libaire, communications coordinator for the city. "Celebrate Oldsmar has been our annual event" since the mid 1990s.

The city expects several thousand people to attend, she said. People who haven't been to the park for a while will see that the city has been making some changes to the place. A contractor for the city has been working on a project this summer to add new playground equipment, picnic shelters, wider sidewalks and improved parking to the 15-acre park. The project is about 30 to 45 days away from being completed "if the rain cooperates," Libaire said.

The city started the Labor Day celebration after bad weather in 1995 caused the cancellation of the city's Independence Day fireworks. It was such a success that organizers decided to move the event, fireworks and all, to the holiday celebrating summer's end.

It has been a Labor Day tradition since then, though the weather interfered with the schedule again last year. That's when Hurricane Frances blew through the Tampa Bay area, causing the event to be postponed until early October.

The forecast for tonight doesn't call for anything like a repeat of last year. There's a 20 percent chance of isolated thundershowers, National Weather Service forecaster John McMichael said, "but they'll probably be away from that area."

[Last modified September 3, 2005, 01:20:24]