Denton hosts an Independence Day for the entire gang

[Harry]

Denton’s annual Fourth of July celebration is long on tradition.

The city starts its Independence Day celebration with the Liberty Run 5K, then marches through downtown Denton in the familiar Yankee Doodle Parade, and ends up in Quakertown Park, with Mom and not apple pie, but a whipped cream eating contest.

Parades, whipped cream and gutter boat races are all well and good. But this is Denton, and what matters is music.

Brave Combo saxophone man Jeffrey Barnes, a Corinth resident, seemed a little surprised earlier this week when he announced on his personal Facebook page that Denton’s Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center had called him. The caller was worried, he wrote, that the longstanding local musical group associated with the

Fourth of July hadn’t signed up for the parade.

The Denton Institute of Phrenology Half-Fast Marching Band is a fun-loving assembly of local musicians and friends who celebrate their country through music and marching — just once a year.

“Apparently we are needed,” Barnes wrote on his status update last Friday. “Can we refuse if our nation calls us?”

The half-fast marchers have heeded the call. Denton, your patriotic serenade is on the way. Barnes said he’s passed this year’s grand marshal sash to another band member.

“As ever, those who are even the slightest bit musical should bring an instrument,” Barnes said on the official invitation (find it here: http://on.fb.me/15gCFgw).

“Those who are not can bring a drill (that is, a boring device) and march with the Trepanettes, our all-person precision drill team. Or just come anyway.”

The city’s Family Fun Jubilee winds up at noon. At 12:30 p.m., Denton band Sol Tax performs the final concert of the Twilight Tunes series on the Square.

Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/entertainment/denton-time-headlines/20130703-the-whole-shebang.ece