Eddie Shay, the smiling, nostalgic face of Kansas fireworks, ‘I’m still amazed’

Eddie Shay’s face has been added to Mount Rushmore on a T-shirt sold at the Gardner location of Eddie’s Fireworks owned by Eddie’s son Adam. (Eric Thomas for Kansas Reflector)

By Eric Thomas, Kansas Reflector

If you drive up to a fireworks tent in eastern Kansas this week, the caricatured face of Eddie Shay might welcome you on a banner. 

“EDDIE’S FIREWORKS,” the sign will read. “LIGHTING WICKS SINCE ‘76.”

“I was lighting wicks way before that,” Shay says.

However, it was 49 years ago when he started selling fireworks, launching a family business that now uses his smiling face — hair escaping from a ball cap — as the logo. On the crown of the ball cap? A lit firecracker.

His children put his face on T-shirts, hats, banners and stickers without him knowing once they became part of the fireworks business.

One T-shirt places Shay on Mount Rushmore, between Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe, Thomas Jefferson and Shay all sport red, tinted sunglasses.

“That was a little embarrassing there for a while,” Shay said. “In fact, I’m wearing a hat with my face on it now.”

This column was not supposed to be about Eddie Shay. I was almost done writing a column about the fireworks code in La Cygne — the municipal code that audaciously allows you to light your fireworks from 6 a.m. to midnight for nine days surrounding the Fourth of July.

However, that really is all that you need to know about that story.

Shay’s tale is the one you need to hear. It was definitely the one I needed to hear as we celebrate America’s 249th birthday.

I called Shay because he owns a fireworks store in La Cygne. I thought he might have a quick comment about how the city allows so many days of fireworks.

I caught him at his house on a landline (“I don’t even carry a phone anymore.”). Two days before the holiday, he had stopped there to pick some tomatoes and zucchini from the garden.

Instead of a brief quote, I learned about Eddie’s love of fireworks — an emotional, generational love for a side business that he started while working as a rough-in carpenter. Our talk was interrupted a few times as he paused to dry his tears and grab a drink of water.

“I’m almost 78,” Shay said. “And here I’m crying like a baby.”

I asked how much longer he would work the grinding hours at summer fireworks stands.

“I don’t even know why I’m doing this,” Shay said, holding back tears. “I’m sorry.”

He took a long pause to compose himself before saying that he will probably let one of his children take over his part of the business.

He paused again, the tears welling. He continued, describing the families who visit the store without enough money to buy their kids the fireworks they want.

“There’s nothing like it. When there’s a family that’s kind of struggling in life, and when it comes to money and buying fireworks … I don’t know why I’m doing this,” Shay said, wiping away tears.

He continued: “Anyway, to hand that little person something they were really eyeballing a lot, and just give it to them. To me, that’s kind of Fourth of July. Yeah. The smile. The smile. And I don’t even know why that is emotional for me. I don’t know. But anyway, that’s the truth.”

Eddie Shay’s face has become the logo for fireworks stands owned by him and his family. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of his first fireworks stand in 1976. (Eric Thomas/Kansas Reflector)

That feeling probably finds inspiration in Shay’s childhood. He told me how he was the fourth of 13 kids in his family, growing up in a two-bedroom house in the country. He remembers his dad making only $250 each month working for the county.

“The reason I get kind of emotional — I’ll get a grip on pretty soon — but I loved fireworks as a kid,” Shay said. “And we didn’t have any, hardly any at all. My parents would definitely wait till the Fourth so we wouldn’t shoot them off.”

Whether owned by himself or by relatives, locations for Eddie’s Fireworks have been outside Edgerton, in La Cygne, Gardner, Wellsville, Paola, Osawatomie and Spring Hill, plus other cities over the years, Shay said.

“I wanted my kids to have that neat, good, great feeling of shooting fireworks,” Shay said.

“And so that I wouldn’t have to buy fireworks, I got involved in fireworks.”

He remembers his kids shooting off fireworks from his first stand and on their 20-acre farm in Linn County, far from livestock and other families.

“My kids, when they were little, they shot fireworks year round,” Shay said. “I’m talking little stuff — not the big stuff you’re hearing nowadays.”

His family seems astrologically drawn to the Fourth of July: His brother and sister were born on July 5, while his dad’s birthday was July 1. On Wednesday when we talked, he had just called his son to wish him a happy 49th birthday: July 2.

“My wife was running our first firework stand. Wow. How about that?” Shay said.

Selling fireworks has taught the next two generations lessons that are important to Shay. As we talked, his wife, daughter and two granddaughters were working at the stand.

“Oh my gosh,” he said. “My kids learned how to count money back. It’s not like you go into a store today and people give you money. They actually learned how to count money back to everybody.

“You go into places of business. It’s just kind of cold sometimes. In a business like this, you’ve got to be friendly. It just shines. People respect that. I just feel like if you treat people good … if you have a friendly smile and you’re treating people well and talking to them … I think you’re going to prevail.”

Shay remembers the amount he spent on his entire inventory of fireworks during that first year. That total is less than one of the deluxe fireworks that he sells this year.

“I’m still amazed,” Shay said. “It seems like every year things just keep getting better and prettier.”

To find new products each year, Shay visits trade shows and writes up a “cheat sheet” of products he wants to order.

“We got a lot of new stuff this year,” Shay said. “The different effects that I haven’t even seen before! That’s amazing.”

Even so, he still sells his favorite elaborate fireworks from years ago, ones named “Magic Show” and “Outrageous.”

“I’m old school, you know, and I don’t want things to change,” Shay said. “I’ve been through a lot since ‘76, I’ll be honest with you.”

He recalled summers during the 1980s, when the Kansas grass was so dry that you would start a fire just by throwing a smoke ball in the grass. He lost money one year.

“I was able to still pay the workers, but the fireworks sales were pretty nil that year,” he said. “And I swore after that, if there was ever another year that dry, I would never sell fireworks.”

He recounted how in some cities, there were squabbles over the cost of permits or the cost of renting land. Those politics drove him to sell fireworks elsewhere.

A year from today, Shay will celebrate two milestones: the 50-year anniversary of his business and America’s 250th birthday.

How much longer will Shay work in fireworks?

“I really don’t know at this point,” Shay said. “I really don’t know.”

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

This article was republished with permission from the Kansas Reflector. The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit online news organization serving Kansas. For more information on the organization, go to its website at www.kansasreflector.com.