Staff Writer

editorial2@thomastontimes.com

It’s that time of year again, when the heat is soaring, the kids are playing, and fireworks start flying! Independence Day is fast approaching, and hopefully you have on your patriotic boots.

For a great celebration close to home, The Rock Ranch has everything an avid Fourth of July lover needs!

The Rock Ranch is a 1,250 acre working cattle farm owned by S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A. It is located north of The Rock on Highway 36.

Every year, The Rock Ranch hosts “Celebrate America” during the month of June. The event coincides with the National Holiday Indepen-dence Day. For Upsonians, Celebrate America is the only Fourth of July celebration in the area. While the event day isn’t on July Fourth, the sense of patriotism is ever so present.

This year, the ninth annual Celebrate America will be held on Saturday, June 28 beginning at 3:00 p.m. and admission is $20 for family vehicles and $30 for buses (regardless of how many occupants are in the vehicle).

The price of admission will cover a wide variety of entertainment and fun activities making it worth every penny. The whole family can enjoy attractions such as hay rides, pony rides, locomotive train rides, cow train rides, a rock climbing wall, carousel, petting zoo, face painting, paintball shooting range, watermelon cannon, live music, antique tractor display and much more!

If all the fun things to do at Celebrate America hasn’t sold you, then shall the gigantic fireworks extravaganza be mentioned? The Rock Ranch confirms that this years fireworks show will be the biggest in the history of the event. They have added a whopping 1.000 more shells than last year’s display! Talk about a bang for your buck.

“Each year, the celebration gets more exciting. In fact, this will be the third consecutive year that we have significantly increased the size of our fireworks display,” said Jeff Manley, general Manager of The Rock Ranch. “The Rock Ranch offers an escape to a simpler way of life; a farmers life. Where people live with the land rather than on it and where family is more important than anything else. We invite you and your family to come and celebrate this land and this way of life; to celebrate our freedoms as Americans and those who fought to preserve those freedoms; to ‘Celebrate America’.”

While this years celebration mirrors past years events, this year’s Celebrate America is a little bit different. The Rock Ranch has added the mission of raising money for a charity, COTA (Children’s Organ Transplant Association). This campaign exclusively helps local 11-month- old, Cason Blakely, son of B.G. and Trisha Blakely, with his ineivtable kidney transplant. Cason was born with underdeveloped kidneys, and during the course of his life he will need additional kidney transplants ever 10 to 15 years.

To help Cason and the Blakely’s, the Rock Ranch will be donating all the proceeds from a new bungee jumping trampoline attraction, cotton candy sales, face painting stations and raffle tickets. The Blakely family will also be on site to meet guests and generate awareness about this charity.

Another addition to this years festivities is raffle tickets. Courteously of Fun 101 and Bill Bailey, the Rock Ranch will raffle off a chance to win a three night vacation to the DoubleTree at Universal Studios in Orlando, and two free day passes to Universal Orlando Theme Park or Disney World.