While many cities across the country are canceling traditional fireworks displays this 4th of July due to budget woes, the Town of Huntsville’s fireworks display is actually expanding, albeit slightly.

“We have 50-something shells more than we did last year,” Huntsville Fire Chief Dean King says. “We also have more specialty shells—design shells like American flags and smiley faces and things like that—than we’ve had in the past.”

The Huntsville Fire Department hosts the Firemen’s Fourth Festival each July 3-4 on the old Courthouse Mall in Huntsville. This year, festival organizers initially planned to bump up the festival by a day due to the holiday falling on Sunday. An 11th-hour change has shifted the festival back to its traditional days.

King said that while attendance might be limited a bit due to Sunday evening church services, vendors don’t seem to mind that the show is on Sunday.

“We have 64 booths signed up so far,” he said. “Last year we had about 50.

The mall is going to be full.”

Vendors include everything from food to arts and crafts and, of course, politicians.

In the center of it all will be live entertainment, which begins at 11 a.m. Saturday morning and continues through Sunday night.

The traditional 4th of July parade has been shifted from its traditional start time of 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., out of respect for area Sunday morning church services. The parade will follow its usual route, organizing at Huntsville School, traveling west along Baker Highway, circling the square on Court Street and returning to the school along Hwy. 63 before disbanding.

The highlight of it all, of course, will be the Sunday night fireworks show. More than 10,000 people will crowd the mall and the streets of Huntsville at dusk. Fireworks begin about 10 p.m.

Area residents who can’t wait to Sunday to get in on a big bang can head north on Saturday evening to Southern Kentucky Offroad Complex. The points race is heating up in tuff truck, modified tuff truck and ATV racing, as well as mud bogs. But Saturday night’s event features a little something extra. In addition to a dusk fireworks show, there will be kids’ bicycle races. The mud bogs will also be open to kids on ATVs. General admission is $6; pit passes are $15.

Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley has created a mini stir this afternoon by tweeting: “Some good news for the VOLS coming soon. Release on its way.”

The tweet was made shortly after 1:30 p.m. this afternoon.

Any good news is big news in Tennessee football these days, no?

So, let the speculation begin. Is it that Tennessee has signed one (or more) of those juniors and seniors who are eligible to transfer from Southern Cal? Is it that Bryce Brown is going to rejoin the team? Is it that Tennessee has signed Matt Barr, the No. 1 punter in the class of 2010 who initially signed with Fresno State but visited Tennessee this week?

Wes Rucker (Chattanooga Times Free Press) tweets that folks at UT “are acting like it’s something fairly big.“

UPDATE: James Bryant of InsideTennessee.com (Tennessee’s Scout.Com affiliate) tweets that Barr has signed with the Vols.

UPDATE II: Austin Ward (Knoxville News Sentinel) thinks so, too.

UPDATE III: Ward says it’s official: nation’s No. 1 punter is a Vol.

It looks like iPhones are coming to Verizon Wireless in January 2011.

Just 66 days until Football Time in Tennessee!

There is no No. 66 on Tennessee’s current roster so today we take a look back at a former Vol great.

Hank Lauricella

Folks called Hank Lauricella “Mr. Everything.” As the halfback in Gen. Robert Neyland’s famed single wing offense, Lauricella was responsible for most of the team’s rushing duties and passing duties. He did both very well, leading an explosive Tennessee offense through an undefeated 1951 season as the Vols won the national championship.

Gen. Neyland’s single wing attack was considered outdated by the early ’50s; most teams had gone to the T-formation. But with his talented halfback from New Orleans, Neyland’s teams scored 35 or more points in five out of 10 games in 1951.

Lauricella was also a key contributor on Tennessee’s 1950 team, which was considered national champs by many polls after defeating No. 3 Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

Following the ’51 season, Lauricella finished runner-up to Princeton’s Dick Kazmaier in the Heisman Trophy balloting and was selected in the 17th round of the NFL draft.

He eventually went back home to New Orleans and was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, where he served from 1972 to 1996. In 1981, he was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Lauricella is 79 today.

The tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico became Hurricane Alex at about 10:30 p.m. EDT last night.

It isn’t all that common to have a hurricane in the Atlantic before July. In fact, this is the earliest hurricane since 1995.

The southern tip of the Texas coast is under a hurricane warning, but Alex is actually forecast to make landfall in northern Mexico, as a category 2 storm with winds between 95-110 mph. Regardless, the big story for the Texas coast will be heavy rains; perhaps up to a foot of rain by the time all is said and done.

Prepare yourself for the wailing and gnashing of teeth that is about to commence…

The Unc will be on top of it all, I’m sure.

EDITED to LOL at Justice Stephens’ dissent, which states the ruling “could prove far more destructive – quite literally – to our nation’s communities and to our constitutional structure.”

Our constitutional structure? What part of “shall not be infringed” does Justice Stephens not understand

?

Just 68 days until Football Time in Tennessee!

There is no No. 68 on Tennessee’s current roster so today we take a look back at a former Vol great.

Mose Phillips

Halloween afternoon, 1992. A Tennessee program in turmoil is in big trouble in Columbia, S.C. The Gamecocks, led by Oneida native Sparky Woods and their long-haired quarterback, Steve Taneyhill, were on the verge of a significant upset. Winless in SEC player, South Carolina led Tennessee 24-17 with only minutes remaining.

But then in stepped Mose Phillips. Phillips caught a pass from Heath Shuler in the flat at the 43-yard-line, squared up his shoulders and headed for paydirt.

And did he ever. Along the way, no fewer than eight of South Carolina’s 11-man defense got their hands on Phillips. But it didn’t matter. Phillips shrugged off would-be tacklers one and two at a time, then carried the last man across the goal line for the potential game-winning touchdown.

John Ward, calling the play on the Vol Network, exclaimed, “Phillips runs over, around, through and underneath defenders from South Carolina!”

It was one of the most memorable touchdown runs in Tennessee football history.

And but for the very next play, it would have been one of the most memorable runs in the entire history of the Southeastern Conference.

Tennessee had opened the season by winning three consecutive games under interim coach Phil Fumer while John Majors recovered from heart surgery. Among them was a 31-14 dismantling of Florida. When Majors returned to his duties following the Florida game, the Vols won two more games to achieve a No. 4 national ranking. And then the wheels fell off. There was a loss to Arkansas when the Razorbacks scored on a last-second field goal. There was a 17-10 loss to eventual national champion Alabama.

Suddenly, the Vols were in danger of falling out of the first-ever SEC Championship Game. A tie against the Gamecocks would do the Vols no good. Majors had little option but to go for two.

The Gamecocks stopped Tennessee, and celebration commenced in Columbia and Gainesville, where the Gators were headed to the SEC Championship Game despite being trounced by the Vols earlier in the season.

And John Majors was out of a job. Three consecutive losses were too much to overcome, especially considering that two of them were at the hands of the SEC’s first-year newcomers.

The South Carolina was the most memorable run of Phillips’ career, but in hindsight perhaps not the most important.

Earlier in the ’92 season, amidst a monsoon inside Neyland Stadium, Phillips broke off a long touchdown run against Florida, memorably pausing in the end zone to glance at his wrist (it was his first touchdown as a Vol; the glance signified “it’s about time”) as John Ward exclaimed, “It’s a downpour!”

Today, Phillips is head coach at Nashville’s Hillwood High School.

How dry is it in the Upper Cumberlands? Clear Fork River is currently running at 13 cubic feet per second. So much for a July 4 float trip.

Only 3 emails in my inbox all day today and 4 all day yesterday…even the spammers are slacking. A holiday weekend is long overdue!

Modeling data over the past couple of days has been toning down the upcoming cold front quite a bit.

It still looks like a cool-down is on tap, but it also looks like the “cooler” temps will be about average for this time of year. The latest GFS computer model output statistics says highs in the lower 80s and lows in the lower 60s each day Wednesday-Sunday. That’s normal for this time of year. Last week, the model was saying highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s.

The official forecast from the National Wea

ther Service.

Some modeling data is hinting at a refreshing shot of cooler air one week from tomorrow, which would cool us down further.