The area around Beaver Stadium was the site of a terrific fireworks display last night, part of the annual Central Pennsylvania 4th Fest, which claims to have one of the top three fireworks displays in the country. They’re definitely outstanding—they start at 9:20 p.m., are choreographed to music on a local radio station (93.7 The Bus), and last a good 40 minutes.

I have friends who live off Puddintown Road, below Beaver Stadium, and they (like everyone who lives off Puddintown Road) host a Fourth-of-July picnic and fireworks-watching party. Around 9:00 p.m. we strolled through their backyard over to a field on the Bathgate Farm, where we had an excellent view of the show.

I set up my tripod, dug out the instructions I had printed from the Web about shooting fireworks (one good set of tips is here), and fired away.

You can watch a slide show consisting of 15 of the photos I shot last night here. You won’t see anything “Penn Statey” in them, alas—they’re just your basic, generic fireworks photos. Someday I’ll have to figure out a different vantage point to get shots of the fireworks with Beaver Stadium in them.

Tina Hay, editor