ODESSA, Texas — Celebrations are back, and we're seeing the first major events in more than a year. Downtown Odessa decided to get a head start on the holiday weekend.
It was a scaled down version of the Downtown Independence Day Celebration that has occurred in the past. However, a lot of work still went into the event.
"It’s not the big Firecracker Fandango that Odessa has come to know and love over the past 25 years, but just for the sake of coming out of COVID, making sure we’re doing what’s best and most responsible for our community we're doing something smaller scale," Alexa Moulakis, event coordinator for Downtown Odessa Inc., said.
While smaller overall, Downtown Odessa Inc. went bigger in other areas this year.
"For the car show, we have over 70 different vehicles between cars and motorcycles," Moulakis said. "We have cars all the way from the 1920s to 2020 models, so everywhere across the gamut, all different types of makes and models."
Along with a car parade, the event brought in an Austin band, The Selfless Lovers, to come perform as part of the celebration and Hot Summer Nights.
Nick Parr, one of the singers for the band, saw Odessa as a great location to come out and play.
"I think Texas is really big and interesting," Parr said. "The more you drive out in Texas and you find cool towns all the time, and I’m always surprised finding towns I’ve never thought of going to necessarily where they are doing cool events and there is a lot of energy. I think a lot of these communities have awesome energy, they want to do cool things."
Many people contributed to making the event a success.
"An event like this is put on with a few different funding sources," Moulakis said. "We have a lot of really great private sponsorships that help cover a majority of the expenses and then we also do receive funding from city council from the hotel-motel occupancy taxes."
All done as a way to celebrate the Fourth of July in west Texas.