Fourth of July Festival Tuesday at noon in Pepin Park

The 2023 Fourth of July Festival and Community Picnic, one of Havre’s centerpiece Independence Day celebrations, is set for Tuesday at noon at Pepin Park with food, a flag ceremony and music for local residents.

The ceremony and the national anthem will begin around noon, followed by food at 12:15 p.m.

The event’s primary organizer Cassie Denny said the event is prepared to feed 1,000 people.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their own chairs.

The celebration started in 2001 with a parade down Fifth Avenue and since has expanded to a major celebration in Pepin Park on Independence Day with food, music and companionship.

The festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it was at risk of being canceled last year after the retirement of two key members of the event’s planning committee in Allen “Woody” Woodwick and committee then-chairperson Sherri Simonson.

Denny took over last year, saving the 2022 festival from potential cancellation, and she will be organizing this year’s event as well.

This is one of a number of Independence Day celebrations happening Tuesday, including the Havre Jaycee’s Fourth of July Fireworks display at dusk set off at the Great Northern Fairgrounds.