{"id":207602,"date":"2026-07-05T19:43:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=207602"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:43:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:43:31","slug":"a-birthday-bash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/07\/05\/a-birthday-bash\/","title":{"rendered":"A birthday bash!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-4-2026-collage.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-4-2026-collage.jpg 550w, https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-4-2026-collage-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>County residents celebrated America\u2019s 250th birthday on Saturday. Hundreds of people lined Main St. for a parade, and many came back later to hear tunes by country music singer Pete Schlegel. Thersea Mengerink sealed a time capsule during Saturday\u2019s festivities and the Van Wert Area Community Concert Band performed at the Van Wert County Historical Society\u2019s Holiday at Home event. The day was capped off with fireworks. <em>Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"440\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Time-Capsule-7-4-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207604\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/VWACCB-7-4-2026.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207605\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-2026-fireworks.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-2026-fireworks.jpg 550w, https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/July-2026-fireworks-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>County residents celebrated America\u2019s 250th birthday on Saturday. Hundreds of people lined Main St. for a parade, and many came back later to hear tunes by country music singer Pete Schlegel. Thersea Mengerink sealed a time capsule during Saturday\u2019s festivities and the Van Wert Area Community Concert Band performed at the Van Wert County Historical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-13 10:04:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207607,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207602\/revisions\/207607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}