Phone call saves Bowman's fireworks show at lake

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A phone call was the saving grace for the Bowman Area Chamber of Commerce fireworks show once threatened to be halted by a pyrotechnic company’s workforce shortage.

Fireballs will fly through the skies July 3 over Bowman-Haley Dam thanks to a Laurel, Mont., fireworks shooter who called to say he would fill the role left empty by Premiere Pyrotechnics Inc., a Richland, Mo., shooter, officials said.

That call from Big Boomer Fireworks owner Nate Temple came Monday, less than a week after the chamber cancelled the show, board Vice President John Wallman said.

“I know what it would be like for me if all these years Laurel put in the paper that they weren’t going to have a fireworks show,” Temple said. “That would bum me out, let alone little kids.”

Premier Pyrotechnics Inc. has done Bowman’s show for 10 years. But on June 11, the company called the chamber to say it couldn’t provide a shooter, board Director Josh Lindstrom said.

“We were in a pretty big bind there,” Lindstrom said. “He said ‘I’ve been looking, but we’re out of manpower and we have no one to do it.’ It was pretty devastating.”

The company signed a contract to shoot the fireworks, with the chamber making two $4,000 payments, Lindstrom said.

The chamber made one of those payments, which should be returned, he added.

Premier Pyrotechnics did not return calls to The Dickinson Press.

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