HICKMAN - Stan "Chip" Draper circled his 7,400-square-foot Hometown Fireworks tent as the Thursday night sky crackled and sparked.

Under the glow of his four Hollywood premier-style spotlights, he lowered the tent's flaps, sealing off the merchandise for the night.

The blur of a four-hour crush of customers was about an hour behind the Draper family.

Their daughters, Kasondra, 10, and Karissa, 12, who work for smoke bombs, were heading home with their grandparents.

It was 10:52 p.m., closing time after another typical 12-hour day in the fireworks business.

But, as anyone who's ever worked a fireworks stand knows, closing time does not mean the day is done. As long as there have been fireworks stands, there have been fireworks thieves.

And, in response, there are fireworks guardians.

"As soon as the product comes in, there's someone here 24 hours a day," Stan Draper said.

In an effort to protect the thousands upon thousands of dollars of product, the people who guard the stands hold a Roman candlelight vigil of sorts for some 10 straight days.

Husbands and wives bunk together in campers. Boys unfurl sleeping bags atop the grass, gravel or concrete. Dogs are welcome four-legged security systems.

"It's always been that way as long as I've been doing it," said "Kracklin'" Kirk Myers. "And that's been about 15 years."

To prevent fireworks theft, Myers lines his tents with a little bit of everything - construction site-style fencing, empty boxes.

He even lays down minefields of little snappers. The little paper wads of gunpowder make enough noise when stepped on in the dead of a rural Nebraska night to wake up those guarding the fireworks, he said.

Years ago in his York tent, Myers was asleep in his cot at about 2 in the morning when he heard the rustling of a intruder.

"He lifts up the side of the tent, and here I am," he said.

A boy paused in his tracks, and said, "'Oh, this is a fireworks tent. I didn't know what it was.'

"And he up and ran," Myers said.

Sometimes, however, the thieves prevail.

A little before 3 a.m. Tuesday at Kracklin' Kirk's stand in Denton, a silver or black SUV, perhaps a Ford or a Mercury, pulled up near the tent, which was being manned by a 26-year-old employee of Kirk's.

He was asleep inside and woke to the sound of a zipper unzipping.

He looked to the entrance, and saw two guys bolting out the tent.

A Lancaster County Sheriff's Office report states the men stole 30 packages of explosive artillery shells and six packages of firecrackers. The total value of the heist, $810, shows why no fireworks tent goes unguarded, Myers said.

He said his guy chased after them, getting so close that if he'd had a bat to swing, the SUV would be missing a driver's side window.

"(You) like to have a baseball bat on hand," Myers said. "Like to have a dog on hand."

"Really, the dog is the big thing," Stan Draper said.

The Drapers have a fool-proof system. Daughter Kasondra's dog, May, an Alaskan Eskimo, stays with Stan and his wife, Kristin, overnight.

May's presence is critical, Stan Draper said, because "it's the only dog that hears anymore."

Then if 1-year-old May hears anything, she alerts their deaf dog, April, who happens to be a gigantic black German Shepherd.

Oh, and also, they dot the tent with baby monitors and hidden cameras. In three years running the big yellow tent in Hickman, the Drapers have not been burglarized.

The best method, Kracklin' Kirk has found, is if you can have a tandem team guard the tent.

"We like it when we can have it where somebody's up all night," he said. "We've never had an issue in that scenario."

He's been kicking around another idea for a while, though: There would be a string with one end connected to the tent entrance, the other to a tape player. You open the tent, and it sets off the tape player.

The tape player, he said, would then play a recording of the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

Reach Cory Matteson at 473-7438 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.