(upbeat music) - We're firing up the grill, decking out the backyard in red, white, and blue, and sharing the 4th of July memories that bring us all together.

4th of July fun, coming up on this episode of "Inspire."

(bright music) - [Narrator] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Inspire."

The whole gang's here today to talk about the 4th of July.

We welcome back our wonderful sisters.

Of course, we have Danielle, we have Leslie, we have Amy, and we have you and Marty Flickinger that you're gonna meet.

- Today, we're sharing tips and tricks to make your 4th of July holiday the best.

And for many people, that means enjoying spectacular fireworks shows.

- To give us an explosive look at the art and science behind those breathtaking 4th of July fireworks displays, we have Marty Flickinger, pyrotechnician for Topeka's spirit of Kansas fireworks display at Lake Shawnee.

Marty, thank you for joining us on "Inspire," yay!

- Thank you for having me.

- Okay, you've been like the lead pyrotechnician, which is like a totally awesome title, for the 4th of July celebration for like 20 years.

- [Marty] Something like that.

- Okay, most of us shoot fireworks in the backyard or illegally or out in the country, whatever.

What's the difference between what we do in our backyard or in any place that's safe and legal, and what you do for being a lead pyroktechnician?

- Well, one of the differences is, is safety.

You know, so it's our job to not injure anybody and not damage any property and to put on a great show.

Whereas maybe in your backyard, you're only thinking about the last of those.

(Amy laughs) But also because we're licensed and because we follow a lot of regulations, a lot of laws that govern that, we have the limiters taken off.

So what you can buy from a stand legally is capped at a certain power.

They can make 'em as big as they want, but internally, they can only have so much powder.

- [Amy] Okay.

- Legally.

And we don't have that limit.

So we can go bigger and bigger and bigger, but that our responsibility then to use those safely, per the regulation.

So we have a lot bigger things in our quiver of tools we can use.

- [Betty Lou] Mhm.

- You know, I'm from New York and I remember the Macy's fireworks that I used to go to every year.

So is there a difference between when you have to sort of do something for kind of a whole city or you know, of Manhattan, versus something like, let's say Topeka or Lawrence or something like that?

- Certainly, yeah.

There's the logistics of a large venue like that, you've got a lot of moving parts.

It's like the difference between having a garage sale and putting on a, you know, a musical, you know, affair or something where you have a lot of people and a lot of traffic.

And so certainly, you know, I've never worked on a show as big as the New York City show, but you know, between the small and medium ones that I've worked, there's, as they get bigger, you have a lot more things to think about.

You do have multiple sites, you have to coordinate those, or you have technology that synchronizes them or you do it the old fashioned way with radios, but you have a lot of people, and of course, it takes a lot more setup.

You know, you still have small towns that just kind of do it the old fashioned way where a bunch of good old boys with fuses, you know, maybe firemen go out and they just and light.

- Yeah, it's great.

- That's what they can afford because some of the technology required to do it the bigger way, gets pretty expensive and it kind of prices out these little small towns from being able to do that.

- So Marty, you brought some show and tell for us.

Can we see?

- I did.

So if, I sent an image that shows the contrast between a consumer shell that you might load in your backyard and on a professional shell.

And I just thought I'd show you a cutaway.

And this is a model, this is not live, so this is inner, don't worry, but this kind of gives you an idea of what's inside of a shell.

It's kind of interesting because, you know, the shape of these stars here is exactly what you'll see in the sky.

So this will be a sphere of color and then you see another inner ring here.

And so this is the burst.

And so when the shell is loaded, we wire it so that this is the explosive charge that throws it in sky.

- [Leslie] It's gonna go up.

- [Marty] And then this little time fuse is ticking away.

And when it gets to the center, this explodes the shell and lights everything and throws it out into a three dimensional space.

- [Leslie] Ah.

- And so they can put stars, shapes in here, or happy faces and whatever shape you put in here is exactly what you see in the sky.

- That is so cool.

- But they're very complicated and of course they make them.

- [Betty Lou] And who loads those things?

- [Marty] Well, my crew loads them.

- [Amy] Wow.

- So we don't make them.

Of course, they come assembled like this, and then we'll load them into the mortars, which is the tubes that we used to safely launch them, right?

- [Amy] All right.

- [Leslie] And then all the different colors they can just select on what they want?

- It's all chemistry.

If you go back to your chemistry class, you know, the different chemicals they put in here makes oranges or reds or greens or blues or silvers or whatever.

So it quickly goes into science.

- How do you make a happy face?

I'm curious on that one.

- You make a happy face in the shell.

You just have little, they have little padding that makes it stay in a happy face shape.

And then you put the burst in it, and the face starts here, and it just grows.

But it stays.

It's amazing how they all just stay in their own space and they just expand out until they burn away.

So yeah.

- Nice.

Fabulous.

- Fantastic.

- That's very cool.

I love it.

- Okay, so many working parts, and then you add music to it.

How do you get that timed just so when the bombs bursting in air, you get bombs bursting in air?

- Well, the technology for that has changed a lot since I started, like in 2000.

You know, back then I worked for a couple that was leading.

And they literally, she was a school teacher, and she literally wrote everything out long hand, and it was just timed to time code.

- Wow.

- And since then, you know, that's pretty difficult if there's last minute change or an error's discovered.

So since then we've moved to, you know, spreadsheets and then to software.

So now today we use software that helps you plan and pre-visualize all that.

So you can actually see a simulation of what you're going to create.

You can hear the music, but to your question about how do you synchronize it?

It's a little difficult because a firework doesn't burst the instant you say go.

There's all these delays.

There's the, you fire it and then it soon lifts out of the mortar, but then there's a three to seven second delay before it actually is visible to the public.

And so you've gotta back time that if you want that to hit on rocket's red glare, you've gotta plan that, and, you know, maybe fire it in the end of the previous verse.

And so the software works all that math out for us now and makes it a lot easier.

So it's not so much thinking.

I have shot shows where you are kind of playing it like an instrument.

You kind of feel the music and you're play, you pick up the pace and you slow it down.

That's kind of fun because it's, you feel more involved.

It's like the difference between playing a musical instrument live and playing an MP3 and watching it play.

Today, you know, we have a firing system I brought along that we, this is one of the newer ones we use and they're totally remote.

So this is literally what we sit at the, our ground zero.

We sit at this and then we have, we have in the field, we have dozens or maybe 50 of these boxes which actually connect to the fireworks and these talk.

And, but in here is the whole show is timed to the music.

- [Betty Lou] Ooh!

- And it's interesting to watch because it's just going crazy as it's talking to, you know, might shoot over here and then over here, then over here, then over here, here.

And, but it's got all the timing and really our only job is a dead man switch.

That's what they call a dead man switch.

We just have to be ready to kill it if it all goes to pot.

And so it's not as fun.

You're not performing the show anymore.

You design it, you set it up, and then you let the computer shoot it so.

- But you do get to design it.

- [Marty] Yeah, yeah.

- Oh, that's fun!

- You're not buying this prepackaged thing.

- Oh, no, no, no.

No, you're totally involved.

- [Amy] Oh cool.

- Until that moment, so you're not performing it as much, but we do get to see it.

So I've done shows where I never see a single part of the show.

- Aww!

- Because you, because your head, your head is down with a hard hat.

And you just got rain stuff raining around you, but you don't see it until the, like, maybe the, you're all done and you look up and you see the last three seconds and it's like, that was great.

So this is better in that way.

And it's, you lose some things, you gain some things.

But back to your question, you know, that's how it, that's how we synchronize to the music.

It's all timed out with software.

And then we download that result into here and if we wire it according to that plan, then it, the computer knows right where everything is.

If we miswire it, it's gonna shoot the wrong things at the wrong time of course but yes.

- That's amazing.

So what is your favorite part of the firework show?

Since obviously you don't get to see it, what would you get out of it?

What's your favorite part?

Is it the designing process?

- No, no, no, no.

By far, far and away, the best part is shooting the show.

I mean, now we do get to see it and you know, when you're lead, when you're director or when you're the main shooter, we would often, back in those days before this automated system, we'd have multiple shooters at multiple sites because they weren't digitally connected.

And so we'd have multiple people shooting, but then a lot of their crew's just spotting.

So we're watching for problems, watching for spectators who snuck in over the fence, you know, watching these things.

So a lot of the crew does get to watch it.

But to your question, there's a lot of planning and there's a lot of setup up the day of, and it's hot and grueling.

And then there's that 20 minutes of bliss, and then there's.

(group laughs) And then there's all the mess to clean up.

- [Danielle] All the clean up.

- So it's really.

- That sounds like a wedding.

(group laughs) - It's really, the only great part is that show.

That's what gets the adrenaline going.

And you get to see the results of your work.

The rest of it is really awful.

You're out in the sun, you usually don't have any wind and you don't have any shade and it might rain and it's.

- [Amy] Well, you don't want those things.

You don't want it at all.

- [Betty Lou] We understand, not when you're, yeah.

- So how do you get crew?

Because I'm sure there's some of our viewers like, hey, I wanna like shoot some things off.

It's not just easy, like just shooting some things off.

What did you have to do to get to be where you are?

- Well, the way I kind of worked into this was I always liked fireworks, but then I, when I moved to Topeka and found out that you guys let people shoot on the 4th of July here, it was like, it kind of rekindled my childhood love of fireworks.

And from that, I, you know, now the Internet's here and I start looking into things like, there's groups, there's clubs.

And so I joined this club called the Pyrotechnic Guild International, which is an international group of fireworks enthusiasts who actually build their own fireworks.

- [Danielle] Mm.

- And so I kind of went in through that back door and then I volunteered with a local company and they're like, yes, we need people.

And they knew I was very qualified 'cause PGI is kind of a feather in your cap.

And then like I was telling Danielle a couple years after that, that that lead retired and he's like, hey, you seem the most qualified.

I want you to take it over.

And so, so that's kind of how I slipped into it pretty quickly.

- That's awesome, pyro.

(group laughs) - Marty, I can't wait to check out this year's fireworks display.

Thank you so much for being here.

And he's a Salinan, so there's a connection there.

But thank you for being here on "Inspire" and coming up in the next few minutes, we are going to put some sizzle in your 4th of July, as we talk to our friend, Cheryl Clark, from Dare to Dream Event Management, who's gonna share some ideas to make your holiday even better.

So please stay with us.

(upbeat music) - Talk about a big boom.

We have the beautiful Cheryl Clark with Dare to Dream with us today.

On our holiday shows, I know you look forward to having her and we love having her.

And Cheryl, you have outdone yourself again.

Let's make three things.

- Okay, thank you for having me, Betty.

So this truck is a just a old time truck that I picked up at the craft store, and on the inside of, we're gonna make a centerpiece.

You can use it on the inside for your tablescape or outside.

- Okay.

- Depending on what you're doing for the holidays.

So I use some floral foam in here.

You can use wet foam or regular hard foam.

Either or works best.

And then we're gonna put the hydrangeas in here just to fill it.

- Okay, I didn't know there was a wet foam.

That's cool.

- Yep, there is a wet foam for real florals.

- [Betty Lou] Ohh, okay.

- [Cheryl] Yeah, so that works really well, or you can use the regular one for faux flowers.

Well silk flowers, but I use them both.

- [Betty Lou] Yeah, that's great.

- And so we're gonna make the centerpiece and we always wanna decorate in threes, odd numbers, threes or fives.

So we'll just stick the red in.

- And that's just for aesthetics?

- For aesthetics, and it keeps it balanced.

- Okay, and you can make this as full or as sparse as you feel?

- [Cheryl] Yep, you sure can.

- Okay, and then I just love the whole idea of, and if you wanna put little figurines in there.

- You can.

- Driving the truck, you can do that too.

- And then we're gonna top it off with the American flag on the end.

- Oh, that's perfect.

- [Cheryl] You just stick it wherever you want.

- I love it.

Okay, now we're gonna drive this one out, so it'll be over here and move this one in.

But you have something special.

- [Cheryl] I do.

This is just a regular garland for the 4th of July.

- [Betty Lou] Wreath.

- [Cheryl] Garland wreath actually.

And then we'll just put this in there.

Threw some gems in it.

- [Betty Lou] Okay.

- [Cheryl] And then we'll take some ribbon.

I just pre-cut it, it came on a roll.

And we use glue dots instead of hot glue because that works really well.

- And these are just little, little dinky dots.

- Little glue dots.

- This is, I love that.

- Yes.

- I love that.

Okay and now?

- And now then we have our candle and you have a centerpiece.

It can go on the inside or outside.

If you wanna take it out, you can use citronella candles for the 4th of July to keep all the bugs away.

- Perfect.

- Floating candles, any type of candles or lights.

- Yeah, and you could put lights around there or then like solar power, whatever.

And the little lights that flicker.

- [Cheryl] Yes.

- [Betty Lou] Then you don't have to worry about anything catching on fire.

- [Cheryl] Exactly.

- [Betty Lou] So that's perfect.

I love it.

- [Cheryl] Yep.

- And then we're over here.

Our last thing.

- Over here.

This last one.

- We'll just move this over here.

- It's so easy.

- Yes.

- This is just a regular vase.

I took the American flag, cut it off the stick, glue dot it.

And then we're just gonna make a quick centerpiece.

- Okay now when we're doing that, for folks that don't know that you can't buy these separately, I guess you can.

- You can.

- Can you?

- You can.

- Oh okay.

- You can.

- But it's more economical to do it.

- [Cheryl] That's right.

- [Betty Lou] Okay.

- So we bought a bush and we just take our little tool, cut 'em off, and it goes a long way.

- And I think that came from your husband's tool?

- This is my husband's toolbox.

I don't have my regular tools.

- Just saying, be sure to put it back or they'll be coming for you.

- [Cheryl] Exactly, exactly.

(Betty Lou laughs) - Oh, that is amazing.

- [Cheryl] So same thing, outside or inside.

- You know what?

Let's line all of these up and show how simple they are to do.

But they don't look simple.

- They are.

- They look like you spent hours on 'em.

- Nope.

Not at all.

- So we have the truck here, we have the beautiful candles, and again, that could be solar powered, it could be floating.

- [Cheryl] Yep.

- It could be the lights in there or, and this could be this same idea could be for any holiday, couldn't it?

- Any holiday.

You could take any kind of flag.

Any type of thing, if it's Kwanza, you can do a Kwanza flag.

Whatever you wanna do.

- All right, we're ready for 4th of July.

Thank you, Cheryl Clark.

- Yes.

- If you want it done right, you know, over the top, scaled down, whatever you want, you tell her, she'll make it happen for you.

So happy 4th of July.

Thank you.

- Thank you for having me.

(upbeat music) - I have the distinct honor of being with a master, a master barbecuer.

This is Terrance Jefferson from Topeka Barbecue and we're not in his store that you can tell because it's in the Fairland Plaza Mall.

But we're indoors, and there's a special reason that we're doing it the day before the 4th of July.

- Yes, we want to do this early to get everything prepped as possible.

You don't want to do things on the day of cooking because there's just a lot of work to do.

So you want to take away the work on the day of 4th of July so you can have it with friends and family and do most of your prep work the day before.

- All right, so we have a beautiful slab of ribs here.

- Well.

- Let's go.

- Actually this is two slabs of ribs.

- Oh well okay, well there.

Okay, perfect.

- And so you want to go up and do your rub, but you want to go very lightly with this.

- [Betty Lou] Okay.

- [Terrance] Because we're gonna put on two more rubs with this.

- Mm, gosh, I wish you guys could smell it.

It's just fantastic.

- So I'm gonna go kind of medium on this, on the back, and yes, it is important to cover the back also.

- And why medium on this and light on the first one?

- Because you don't want too much of that garlic because this is gonna have some in it also.

- Okay, some garlic.

- Yeah, and this is gonna have more of the flavor that you want in there.

Now we do call this rub but we're not gonna rub the ribs.

We're gonna.

- [Betty Lou] Pat it.

- We're just gonna pat the rib.

So we're gonna go light on this also on the back.

Most of this is gonna maybe cook off the backside, but that's fine.

And that's why you want to go kind of light on the back.

Then we're gonna flip 'em over and give them the same treatment.

Now do you need to do all it is for your backyard?

No.

But if you want to really impress your guests.

- [Betty Lou] Yes.

- [Terrance] I would say give it a try.

(Betty Lou laughs) - I would too.

- At least give it a try.

- [Betty Lou] Now I noticed that there's a rack of sorts up there, but it's not a real high rack.

- [Terrance] Yes.

- [Betty Lou] What's the, why is that?

- Because you just don't want your ribs to be sitting down in the pan.

- Okay.

- So you just wanna raise it just a little bit because you're gonna have juices falling, and you don't want these ribs to just to be sitting in that juice.

- [Betty Lou] Okay.

- And so it's almost like if you did have it on the rack, on the smoker, it's not gonna be sitting in a pool, pool of juices.

- Juices, okay.

- And so now we're gonna let this sit for at least 30 minutes.

I've let it sit for 45 minutes.

I've let it sit for an hour, but I think at least 30 minutes.

And the process, we call this is sweating.

You're gonna see all this starting to sweat into the meat.

- Oh wow.

- [Terrance] And sometimes if you look at it, it looks like it's already cooked because of the nice color of it.

- Okay, so you used three different rubs and they all probably have a different strategy for each one.

How so?

- Yes, we called it layering your flavors.

So the first salt, we want to get some salt, pepper, and garlic on the ribs.

So, and you can make your own salt, pepper, garlic if you want.

You don't have to go and buy a store bought salt, pepper, garlic.

Also, the next one is a very sweet rub.

And for me, I think ribs need that sweetness to it.

And so that's why we go heavy with that one 'cause I love sweet on ribs.

And then the last one, it's just a really good all purpose rub.

It's good on anything.

So you want something like that also to combine with the other two onto your ribs.

- And so it's of course, a matter of personal taste.

- It's a matter of personal taste.

And like I say, you can just use one rub if you like and you will be fine.

- Okay, Terrance, I see what you were talking about.

It looks like you could peel that off and eat it.

How long has it been sitting here?

- It's been sitting here for about 35 minutes.

And yes, you could see the sweat on the ribs now.

And that's what you want to see.

And this is the sign to say, hey, take me out to the grill.

- Okay.

♪ Take me out to the grill ♪ (Terrance laughs) Hang on.

Okay, these beautiful ribs have been in the smoker for three hours.

Terrance, these are your babies.

Now what?

- Now we're gonna wrap 'em in foil, but before we wrap 'em, I put down some Sugar in the Raw, some more sweet seasoning, added some local honey.

I used to use agave, but now I started using the local honey out of Berryton.

So that's what I'm using.

- Okay, and I saw you put some little sauce, another like apple juice or something?

- Yes, and then did, I did a few drops of apple juice.

Don't want too much.

Just enough to try to keep, try to get some steam created into the pool.

- Okay.

- So and now I'm gonna turn these face down.

Look at that color.

- Oh that is gorgeous.

Now why face down?

- Because I want this to smoke.

I want this to go into, even though we're gonna put some on the back part too, but we do it face down and put it back onto the smoker.

So everything is gonna run down.

- Ah.

- Everything is gonna run down to the face of the rib.

So I'm gonna repeat everything on the backside, except for the seasoning, the sweet seasoning that I use.

I only want to put that on the face of the rib.

- Okay.

- So I'm gonna go back with some turbinado sugars.

Sugar in the Raw, whatever you wanna call it.

Then I would go with the local honey.

- Uh-huh.

- Always go one down, one down, then.

- [Betty Lou] A design, yep.

- Okay, that's kind of what I do.

And then get apple juice.

I used for this, I used to buy a whole half gallon, whatever you want to call it, apple juice.

And I realized I'm not using that much apple juice.

So I'll just buy a bunch of these small ones.

- Sure.

- And it'll get me through a cook.

- [Betty Lou] And that's to add some extra moisture?

- Yeah, extra moisture.

And all of this, everything I'm putting in here is really extra flavor that you want to add.

And at the end, we're gonna put some sauce on these.

But you don't have to put sauce on these if you don't want.

I know a lot of people like eating their ribs without sauce, but we're gonna put some sauce on it.

- Now, how long is, are we going to do this again?

- We're gonna put this back on the smoker.

And I'm thinking around an hour and a half, we should be ready to cut some ribs.

- Delicious.

Oh, that's beautiful.

- Shall we get in here?

- There's a lot of time, effort, money, and love put into this.

(upbeat music) And you can tell that it's just gonna be delicious.

And I know you guys have heard this before, but it's like, you know, I wish you could smell these because these are just outstanding and you just feel the nice warmth coming off, and you know they're going to be delicious.

- You want a toast?

- I think we should.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

Terrance Jefferson, folks.

Topeka Barbecue.

- See that bite?

- Mm.

Perfect.

(upbeat music) - Wow, what a fun segment.

I can't wait for the holiday, the food, the festivities.

Soon, soon, soon.

So for the fourth, ladies, what are you gonna be doing?

Or what are some of your favorite memories?

- Well, I love the memories except for getting burned by the sparklers, that my parents told me time and again, don't pick 'em up.

Put 'em in the little thing with the water in them.

But you know, you're a kid so I hope that, you know, talking about the safety, that's important.

- Good point, good point.

- For the past, probably seven and a half years I've lived here, I've always gone to a fireworks show that my friends have put on.

And they have been just as ornate as some of the ones that we've seen out here at Lake Shawnee.

And one of my favorites was literally he opened up the back pasture and all the barbecue, all the drinks, everything he did himself.

And he spent about 20,000 on the firework show.

- Wow!

- And that happened a couple of years in a row.

And he had extra fireworks.

So the kids ended up with sacks of fireworks to take home, and so they were all shooting them in the yard and it was just, it was the best day.

So that's my favorite memories.

- That's fun.

- Yeah.

- Right, we just celebrate 4th of July.

Like most people go into barbecue or trying to find where in town they're doing the fireworks display and get there so you can watch 'cause everybody loves fireworks.

But my favorite is just when I was growing up.

It's so funny, about a week or two ago, I happened upon a picture of us.

They're my cousins and my siblings and I, there were seven of us, and we were literally stair step, you know, cousin, cousin, sibling, sibling, cousin, sibling, I mean seven of us right in a row.

And they lived in Oklahoma.

And we would go down to Oklahoma, and we would buy fireworks and go out in the country and just shoot.

I mean it was so "Little House on the Prairie," you know, out there, kind of blowing stuff up and little Black Cats.

And we thought they were so great.

We just had the best time.

- [Leslie] Yeah.

- Had the best time.

See you guys are so lucky because in New York it's not legal.

- Yeah.

- You can't be doing these firework-y things.

- Oh, okay.

- So as I mentioned with Marty, you know, we would go to the Macy's Day fireworks, but my favorite is we would just go to my cousin's house because we didn't have a backyard.

And we would go somewhere with my cousins that, you know, their families had backyards.

We'd have a big barbecue and we'd get to see all of our cousins because you know, you don't get to see them all the time.

So everybody would be, there would be 17 of us with, you know, my aunts and my uncles and my uncle was a fabulous barbecuer.

And all the men of course thought they were wonderful barbecuers.

- [Amy] Oh yeah.

- But the food was amazing.

- Right.

- Always amazing.

And so those are my favorite memories.

Playing with my cousins, getting to see my cousins and.

- Okay, so how old were you the first time you shot a firework?

- I never have.

(Amy gasps) I'm a virgin.

- So am I, girl, thank you.

(upbeat music) - And that's all the time we have for today.

I want to thank our guests, Marty Flickinger, Cheryl Clark, and Terrance Jefferson for joining us on this delightful discussion.

We hope you have been inspired by today's conversations.

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

- And we hope you're inspired to learn more about our guests, find out what's coming up on future "Inspires," and get additional access to all the content, just visit our website, www.ktwu.org/inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring all of us to have a safe and spectacular 4th of July.

Inspiring you on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.