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Before the Warsaw Common Council meeting Tuesday, Mike Loher gave each of the council members and the mayor a packet of information about the Kosciusko County Freedom Fest to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.
The three-day event, scheduled for June 5-7, 2026, is expected to include a major concert, family-friendly activities, fireworks, local vendors and a parade.
Loher told the council during their meeting, “I’ve been asked to be the county coordinator for America 250 from one of the commission members that Gov. Holcomb put in place, when he was in office. So, every so often I get a letter from Charlotte, who keeps us updated on things that the state would like each community to do in Indiana to celebrate America’s birthday.”
He said he was before the council Tuesday to let them know, “We would really appreciate the city’s support for this. ... I have a dream that this could be quite an epic event for our county and our community as far as a tourism standpoint, if we can get everyone working together toward the same goal.”
The packet Loher provided the council members included parade, vendor and event applications.
“So one of the cool things is, if the mayor is going to have an event - whatever it could be, a bed race downtown Warsaw - and he wants to have everybody decorate their beds in red, white and blue to commemorate America’s birthday, if he fills that event form out and submits it to me, then I submit it to the state, America 250 Commission, and then it goes on the state’s website as an official America 250 event. And that can be for any event, within reason. It has to meet the parameters of family friendly and that type of thing. It also has to commemorate America’s birthday, but it can be any time throughout the year,” Loher said.
Those events could include Winona Lake’s fireworks, a Third Friday or any Central Park activity that incorporates something about America 250 in it.
“All of those forms are on the kcfreedomfest.org website, and if you go to the Indiana website for America 250, you’ll find a map and you can hover over the different counties. The ones that have events highlighted, you can click on that and see what other counties are doing. It’s pretty interesting,” Loher stated.
He said Chapman Lake has submitted for their fireworks and flotilla, and Wawasee has submitted for their flotilla. Freedom Fest is on there.
“We’ve got some really cool things in the works for Freedom Fest, I think. In my 51 years, I don’t remember some of the things that we have lined up ever being in Warsaw before. We’re not quite ready to reveal that,” he said, but hopefully sooner rather than later some “pretty cool” announcements will be made.
“We’re giving the fairgrounds a facelift, cleaning the fairgrounds up so ... it’ll be a nice, fresh look for the fairgrounds to celebrate America’s birthday. Anything you guys can do to help support this would be fantastic,” Loher said.
Mayor Jeff Grose thanked Loher for everything he’s done up to this point. He said he appreciated the information and Loher sharing with the council. He said the council would look over the packet of information and get in touch with Loher if they have any questions or concerns.
Councilman Josh Finch asked, for the general public who might be hearing about this for the first time, if they want to help in any way, how can they get in touch with someone to do that.
Loher said all the information is on the www.kcfreedomfest.org website. They also have a Facebook page, which is Kosciusko County Freedom Fest.
“The reason we’re calling it Freedom Fest is very intentional,” he said. “Some places are just calling it America 250, but we’re doing Freedom Fest to celebrate America 250 because if this goes well, then we’d like to continue Freedom Fest and we don’t have to rebrand everything next year. We can continue with Freedom Fest if this goes off well.”
Loher stated they had endorsement letters from the governor, lieutenant governor, Congressman Rudy Yakym, Rep. Craig Snow and Grose.
“So we’re pretty excited about that,” Loher said, noting that the state is also asking each community to plant a Liberty Tree. “We’re working with (County Administrator) Marsha (McSherry) over at the courthouse to see if there’s a location on the courthouse lawn that we can plant a Liberty Tree. That will be kind of a ceremonial thing. We’re thinking maybe we could include that in a Third Friday. We’ve talked to state forester, and they’ve made some recommendations on a particular type of tree to plant, and they can actually come up here and help make that an educational process to plant the tree and that type of thing. So that will be pretty cool.”
The state also suggested that each county do a time capsule.
“So be thinking of some cool things that we could put in a time capsule. They don’t want it buried, they would like it put on display. Sealed and put on display - City Hall, courthouse, something like that,” Loher said.
For more information about Freedom Fest, visit the website at www.kcfreedomfest.org or email Loher at mike@seven25sevents.com
