The Press-Dispatch
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www.DiscoverDaviess.com www.VisitDaviessCounty.com 812-254-5262 Energizing Your Financial Future 812-354-1134 or 317-261-8521 6925 IN-57, Petersburg | energypluscu.org Your trust in us is priceless, and we're so proud to serve this community. Happy Holidays to all of our members, friends and neighbors! Wishing You Gd Fortune May the meaning and traditions of Christmas come together to fill your heart with joy and contentment this season. With our sincere thanks for your patronage, ROBLING Tax Service, LLC 303 N. 12th St., Petersburg • 812-354-9673 Carol Robling, Jim Robling, Holly Garland-Blake Behind Hornady Park's bright lights By Andy Heuring Press-Dispatch News editor@pressdispatch.net When you drive through Hornady Park near Christmas you see the nearly 80 light displays scattered throughout the 100 plus year old park's rolling hills. The illuminat- ed displays have been a standard feature of Hornady Park known as Christmas in the Park since the late 1990s. It is a Christmas tradition of many area families to drive through the park and see the lights, at least once each year. You might ask how do these displays get here? Volunteers. A group of about 15 to 20 volunteers head- ed up by Steve Hamilton and John Burns start meeting at the park near the end of October or beginning of November and get out the displays one by one. Some of the old- er guys plug the displays in and check for burned out lights and replace them. Typical- ly they carry them to a wagon to be driven to their location in the park. Then some of the younger guys, which is a relative term, take the lights and put them in place. They use a fence post driver to stamp fence posts into place and the dis- plays are zip-tied onto the fence posts and stakes to hold them in place. Light displays that no longer work are set off to the side and some of the volun- teers who are electricians start to work on them rewiring and patching the damaged displays. Winter wind, rain and snow tends to take a toll on the displays. So each year there are some repairs to be made. The group works a couple days a week through the month of November trying to catch good weather days to get the dis- plays set up. They often are racing against time to have them all set up and working by their annual opening date of the Friday af- ter Thanksgiving. "I remember the first year. We were out here still swirling them up when cars start- ed coming through the park to see them," said Silas Ashley, a member of the Peters- burg Park and Recreation Board that over- sees Hornady Park. When Christmas in the Park started, Jack Brock and Hugh Eskew did much of the set- up by themselves with limited volunteers. About 15 years ago Eskew and Brock decid- ed it was time to hand off those duties and Continued on page E-3 Christmas Greetings Wednesday, December 21, 2022 The Press-Dispatch E-2