Painting the sky
7/1/2026
Who doesn’t like fireworks? Maybe those with sensitive ears — or most dogs. But, by and large, Americans love a boom followed by a sparkle of light that paints the night sky. There may be no one more familiar with that feeling than Kelm Brueschke.
Brueschke has been in the fireworks business since 1991, but the spark happened when he was much younger when his father took him and his brothers to Sioux City to buy fireworks for the Fourth of July.
“We’d fill our truck full, and we would come home, and we would shoot fireworks in our backyard. That’s what got me and my brothers interested in fireworks,” Brueschke said.
Fast forward to 1991, when his brother, while looking for a new sales job, attended a fireworks convention in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He met representatives from J&M Displays, who were hiring a sales representative.
“He needed somebody to shoot shows. So, he kept bugging me, and at the time I was working at Principal Financial Group. He was doing the shows at the Iowa State Fair, and I finally said OK, I’ll come out and I’ll do one,” Brueschke said.
That Iowa State Fair show in 1991 was one of the first of thousands of events. A year after that initial show, Brueschke became a lead shooter.
“It was just one of those things where I just got hooked on it. It’s a lot different than going to a tent or a building and buying a bunch of fireworks, consumer-grade stuff, and shooting your own stuff. The professional stuff is totally different,” Brueschke said.
He says the way fireworks are launched has changed significantly over the years, for the better.
“Most of them were all hand fires, where you’re literally carrying and shooting fireworks. Somebody’s shooting fireworks 15-20 feet away from you, lighting it with a flare, and they’re going up and exploding over the top of you with all the fallout coming down. And I’m carrying a live explosive and reloading the mortars. That alone has been a huge adrenaline rush. Just the smell of the sulfur, and that chest-thumping, because you feel it when everything explodes above you. It’s just an amazing feeling,” Brueschke said.
In 1993, Brueschke took over the duties for the Iowa Cubs’ Friday night fireworks shows. Chances are, if you have attended an Iowa Cubs game, watched from a nearby rooftop on a summer Friday night or parked somewhere to enjoy the display, you have seen Brueschke’s work in action.
“I would get done with work at Principal, and I’d rush down there, get changed, go and load everything up, and get ready for a 7 p.m. start time for the game. I would shoot stuff off the scoreboard when that team took the field during the national anthem, and then every time they hit a home run, and then at the end of the game. If they wanted me, we just shot it up,” Brueschke said.
His work extends far beyond the Iowa State Fair and Iowa Cubs games. Brueschke has produced fireworks displays at Iowa State University football games and concerts featuring artists ranging from the Beach Boys and Slipknot to Green Day, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and KISS. The KISS concert remains a favorite memory.
“I mean, if you know concerts, and if you’re a pyro technician, what show do you want to work on? KISS. Every damn song has got fireworks in it — you know, pyrotechnics. And it’s just not pyro, but it’s special effects. You got fog, you got cryo-jets, all kinds of different things going on there. It was at Hilton Coliseum in August of 2000,” Brueschke said.
Making sure the proper arrangements are in place for all these events is crucial. Brueschke spends months planning many of his shows.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes into design,” Brueschke said. “To me, it’s artistry. I’m trying to paint a picture in the sky, or I’m trying to deliver what the customer wants to see. That is a big part of what I do — just trying to use creativity and come up with different ideas.”
One example is the fireworks show at Prairie Meadows, which Brueschke describes as the largest display in the Des Moines area. He said he changed the display to add music and choreography to be more creative.
Brueschke said he has been fortunate to avoid major injuries throughout his decades in the industry with only one minor injury occurring in 2002. He credits that record to his attention to detail and commitment to safety.
His shows have taken him across the country, but perhaps none was more memorable than working on fireworks displays for Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000.
“They were looking for that photo-op, the media, the picture that we can blast all around the country on the front-page news. They liked what I did, and then they moved on to the next state and called me and took me along, and we just kept going and going and going throughout the whole year,” Brueschke said. “I went all the way to the end on election day, and I traveled all across the country with him, especially those last two weeks, just going from city to city, place to place, jumping around and working on the fly. Coming up with the creativity and stuff like that on the go is probably the neatest experience that I ever had.” n
Cyote Williams was born and raised on the south side of Des Moines and writes about entertainment, sports and personalties across the Des Moines metro for CITYVIEW. Phone: 515-953-4822 x333.
