The first Fourth of July celebration began in Sewanee in 1986, complete with a parade, mutt show, and games for the children. The highlight of the celebration was the much anticipated fireworks show.

“When I was a child, people would gather at the fire hall about a week or so before the show,” said Keith Henley. “There were sheets of 4 foot by 8 foot plywood all around the bay area, and we would screw down the little one time mortar shots.” Mortar shots have a single tube that can be a three to six inch shell, which is jettisoned out after it is lit.

“Firefighters had to ignite road flares to light the fireworks, and everyone knew fireworks were going to start,” said Henley.

Until 2002, this was how the fireworks were prepared for each celebration.

Keith recalls Dave Green saying, “Why can’t we get it to where we can surprise all these people?”

“That is when my Uncle Clea Sherrill came up with the idea that we were going to shoot bigger fireworks.”

First, Clea, Dave, Tim “Rambo” Carpenter, Kevin Gilliam and Johnny Smith designed a trailer that would hold between 3 and 6 inch mortar shells, with different size HDPE tubing.

“Uncle Clea did all the research and found out how to electric match the fireworks,” said Keith.

“The first electronic firing system we used was built by my Uncle Clea,” said Keith. “To use a firing system by Tennessee codes for fireworks, they had to have a button to fire, a key to arm the system, individual switches to each firework, and LED lights that send low voltage to each match and back again causing the LED to glow and show the match is good. Clea built his system out of an old speaker box and used old printer ports and cables to run the wire to a trailer. Clea, Kevin, Johnny and I wired to the trailer, so the cables were plugged in, with the fireworks wired to posts.”

“Around 2010, Clea and Dave found a remote firing system from a company called Cobra. It uses a remote that talks to up to 100 boxes that test the fireworks and can have 18 different switches per box. We started with three boxes. We can fire multiple fireworks per button because of the matches being daisy chained in series up to eight matches. We are using the same boxes today.”

Keith said he started helping with the annual show in 2002. Dave had the ATF license to shoot off the Class B fireworks, which have more height after the firework is lit. Keith, Clea and Rambo got the state license.

This is the 10th anniversary of Clea passing away. Rambo passed in 2020, and Dave passed in 2022.

But the show must go on.

“During the past several years, the fireworks have been a good tradition to keep them alive, we wanted to keep them going,” said Keith. As the fireworks brighten up the night sky, “We are thinking about people who aren’t here anymore.”

After Rambo passed, Keith started doing the fireworks show for the University graduation and Homecoming weekend. After Dave passed, they no longer could use the Class B fireworks because his name was linked to the original license. Keith said they are trying to get the ATF license back.

“The fireworks we use now are Class C or consumer – fireworks that anybody can buy. With this firing system, you don’t have to have the ATF license.”

“Some people told me they like the Class C show better. You can add several fireworks or more together and it is almost equal to a Class B firework. With every button we push, there are three fireworks attached to it. We get together, the extended Sherrill family and friends, and everyone gets to pick out their three fireworks for the celebration.”

Keith started a company in memory of Clea, Rambo and Dave, called 411 Fireworks. Keith, Zach Langford, Matthew Gilliam, John Weaver, and Dylan McClure are involved now. Three years ago, they started helping the City of Decherd with their fireworks show. This year, they also did the show at the SAS Alumni Weekend.

For each firework show, Keith carries with him a little black box. Inside of it is Dave’s old tobacco pipe, a knife that Rambo made, and the white pocket protector Clea had with the screwdriver set he used for electronic work.

“The show never goes on without this little black box,” said Keith. This way, each of them is still with us just a little bit.”