Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Warren County 4th of July Organization Chairman Bill Thompson accepts the Grand Sponsor donation from Morgan Lemmon, Kristi Bogart, and Hannah Miller of United Refining Company. United, Kwik Fill, Red Apple, and Country Fair are the official grand sponsors this year and the company has been sponsoring the parade for at least 10 years.

For more than a decade, United Refining Company has been the grand sponsor of the Fourth of July parade.

On Wednesday, officials from United and the Warren County Fourth of July Organization got together to make it official for another year.

Organization Chairman Bill Thompson thanked United for its long-standing support of the parade.

The dollars from the company help support the parade in many ways, including providing funds to bring in top parade units from all over the region.

This year, the drum and bugle corps and other traveling groups include Rogues Hollow Regiment (northeast Ohio), Downbeat Percussion (official drumline of the Buffalo Bills), the Hamburg Kingsmen Alumni (Lackawanna, N.Y.), the Steel City Ambassadors (Pittsburgh), and the Grey Knights (Johnsonburg).

Those kinds of groups are the organization’s biggest expenditure for the parade, but they help make the event memorable.

As of Friday, there were more than 100 units signed up for the parade – up from a typical number of about 80.