By Charles Owens
For Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Bluefield — Free lemonade will be served next week in Nature’s Air-Conditioned City just in time for an approaching heat wave.
Temperatures next week are expected to climb close to 90 degrees for several days, including on Thursday, July 2. That’s when free lemonade was already scheduled to be served as part of the Chamber Night at the Ballpark promotion.
The Bluefield Ridge Runners baseball game starts at 5:30 p.m. at Bowen Field and will feature free lemonade and free t-shirts, along with a fireworks show later that evening, according to Jeff Disibbio, president and chief executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce of the two Virginias.
“We are happy to celebrate our Chamber Night at the Ballpark,” Disibbio said. “We have partnered with East River Psychiatry. We will have free t-shirts available as well as free lemonade. We are also going to have fireworks that night. So it should be an exciting night packed full of fun and baseball. We hope we have a great crowd to come out and participate.”
“I’ve already spoken with Kwik Kafe who we partner with on this and they are aware of the potential of us hitting 90 degrees, and they are prepared to deliver and help us serve ice cold lemonade to help cool all of us off during those 90 day temperatures,” — Jeff Disibbio, president and chief executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce of the Two Virginias.
The approaching heat wave is simply a coincidence, as the event had been scheduled well in advance.
“I’ve already spoken with Kwik Kafe who we partner with on this and they are aware of the potential of us hitting 90 degrees, and they are prepared to deliver and help us serve ice cold lemonade to help cool all of us off during those 90 day temperatures,” Disibbio said.
The heat wave is expected to last for several days with temperatures climbing into the high 80s and near 90.
Dissibio said Bluefield has recorded 90 degree reading during past chamber events, including the coal show and the chamber’s golf tournament.
While it is too early right now to say whether or not Bluefield can expect an official 90 degree reading next week, Dissibio said free lemonade will still be served at Bowen Field on July 2 regardless of the actual temperature.
“Guaranteed regardless,” Disibbio said. “There will be lemonade served next week, somehow and someway.”
The combination of free lemonade, free t-shirts to the first 200 people through the gate and free fireworks at dusk means a large crowd will be expected on July 2 at Bowen Field.
“It (fireworks) generally draws a big crowd,” Disbbio said. “The fireworks draws a big crowd to the stadium as well as the parking lot. Some people watch from East River Mountain. It’s very well attended.”
According to AccuWeather, millions across the country will face widespread 90-degree weather next week as a “heat dome” sets up over the eastern United States ahead of the long Fourth of July weekend. This pattern will bring extreme heat to the central and eastern states, according to AccuWeather.
A heat dome is a sprawling area of high pressure that creates hot and humid conditions for days or weeks at a time, according to a AccuWeather press release. Heat domes can prevent clouds from forming, resulting in abundant sunshine that boosts temperatures, potentially toward record levels.
The last time Bluefield hit 90 degrees was July 15, 2024.
Bluefield’s nationally recognized lemonade promotion dates back to 1939.
That was when the late Edward H. “Eddie” Steele, the chamber president at the time, came up with the promotion as a way to bring increased attention to the city of Bluefield.
As the story goes, Steele initially proposed offering free rooms at the West Virginian Hotel if the local temperature reached the 90-degree mark. But Steele had to scrap that idea when an Odd Fellows convention was in town, and the temperature hit 90 degrees. The initial promotion proved to be too expensive for the chamber, according to local history.
Steele then came up with the idea of serving free lemonade in the city when the mercury climbed above 90 degrees. At about that same time, Steele authored Bluefield’s time-tested slogan, “Nature’s Air-Conditioned City.”
At that point, the chamber would have to wait another two years before the mercury would hit 90 degrees again in Bluefield. It finally happened during the pre-war summer of 1941.
Since that time the lemonade promotion has garnered national attention for Bluefield and in more recent years, the town of Bluefield, Va.
The lemonade tradition in Nature’s Air-Conditioned City has endured throughout the ages, despite a number of challenges over the decades, including a lemon and sugar shortage during World War II, criticism from area clergymen, a strike by the Lemonade Lassies, controversy that still flares up from time to time to this very day over what constitutes an actual 90-degree reading in Bluefield.
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