ELKINS — The Randolph County Commission approved a funding request from Our Town Inc. in the amount of $5,000 during its regular meeting Nov. 20.

Our Town volunteer Pricilla Gay gave an informational presentation to Commissioners Cris Siler and Chris See. Gay said she was there to talk about “fireworks.”

“In 2026 it marks the fourth year that Our Town has overseen the July 4th festivities, including the fireworks show,” Gay said. “When we took over in 2023, for that celebration we doubled the fireworks budget from $5,000 to $10,000 at the recommendation of our shooter. He told us that it takes at least that much for a strong, crowd-pleasing display.”

Gay told commissioners that even though Our Town’s investment paid off and that the 2023 and 2024 fireworks shows were “pretty fantastic,” last year’s show was down a bit because of inflation. She noted that fireworks look to be even more expensive this year.

“We spent the same amount for the 2025 show, but the show didn’t sparkle,” Gay said. “We hadn’t accounted for inflation and it has chipped away at the dollars we have been spending. And on top of the rising costs because of inflation, we just received a letter from our fireworks supplier and they are now having to pay a 34% tariff on their fireworks and their suppliers have increased their prices already.”

Gay said that because of the increases, Our Town has determined that they have to spend at least $12,000 on this year’s fireworks display in order for Our Town to maintain the quality of their shows.

“July 4, 2026 is a very special day, it marks the 250th birthday of America and it falls on a Saturday,” Gay said. “We have had really good crowds for the concerts, the car shows, and the fireworks together… We are expecting a larger crowd for next year’s show and we want to deliver. To help make this possible, we have requested $6,500 from the Commission.”

Siler told Gay that the amount of $5,000 has already been budgeted in for this year’s fireworks and that the Commission couldn’t provide any more than that at the current time.

“We have come into some shortfall with our hotel-motel (tax) this year and have had to kind of budget out throughout the year,” Siler said. “So we have that budgeted and really can’t go over what we have budgeted at this time. That’s not to say between now and the Fourth of July we couldn’t reimburse some more to you to help you out a little bit… Right now, we are kind of just stuck at $5,000, unfortunately.”

Gay said she understood and thanked the Commission for its continued support of the Fourth of July celebration.

The Commission unanimously approved the request for $5,000, which will be taken out of the hotel-motel tax line item in the county budget.

The next Randolph County Commission meeting will be Dec. 4 at 1:30 p.m. at the Commission Annex.