Drone show kicks of campus holiday celebrations
Cardinal Lights, Lamar’s annual Christmas event, was held, Nov. 18 at the new intramural field and the Reaud Honors College. Students and the community gathered to kick off the holiday season with various activities and ended the night with a drone show.
The turnout for this year was larger than last year’s, with rough estimates found by how many stuffed cardinals and bears were made throughout the night.
“We haven’t gotten official numbers yet, but I was told they had 1,400 “build-a-bears,” and they were gone pretty early,” LU President Jaime Taylor said. “Our first year, we had maybe 500 people show up. Well, this has to be around 3,000 or 4,000 because every kid doing a build-a-bear, and two parents, that’s 4,000 right there.”
The holiday atmosphere was strong with the choir and band playing Christmas songs, families taking photos with Santa and children enjoying bounce houses and games. Hot chocolate and cookies were available for everyone at the refreshment table, and food trucks lined Rolfe Christopher Drive.
All of these activities led up to ExxonMobil’s presentation of a check funding the night and the traditional flipping of the switch, which turned off all of the lights in the intramural field so that the drones could be seen flying up into the night sky. The drones depicted the names of the event’s sponsors, holiday scenery and traditions, a big LU and a very festive cardinal with a Santa hat.
“I had the honor of putting (the drone show) together and just seeing how well it turned out,” Hayden Jackson, coordinator of student engagement, said. “Being able to do something a little different than the traditional fireworks that pulled in a bit more elements was really fun and got more impact from the crowd.”
Altogether, Taylor said that he hopes the community goes home with a better understanding of Lamar University.
“I hope they go home with (knowing) that Lamar is part of this community, and we just want to help this community and we just want to be a good partner,” Taylor said. “I think everybody that comes out feels like ‘This community is a good community.’
“What I’ve noticed the last several years is at night, you’ll see people coming off of Cardinal Drive, riding by the university, taking a look at the lights and then going home. That’s what makes me feel really good, that people love the lights and get to see it all during the holidays.”
The lights are visible on Rolfe Christopher Drive, Jimmy Simmons Boulevard and Jim Gilligan Way. The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum is also decorated for the holidays. Holiday lights will stay up for the month of December.
Drone show shines light on festivities
Students , faculty, staff and their families enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies while holiday lights lit up Lamar during the annual Cardinal Lights festivities, Nov. 18 .
Local organizations hosted tables and games for all to enjoy while the LU band played Christmas songs during the event which was sponsored by ExxonMobil.
LU nursing instructor Shannon Marsh and her family were given the honor of flipping the switch which shut the lights off at the intramural field allowing the drone show to light up the sky, creating holiday shapes, honoring sponsors and ending with our own LU hanging in the night sky.
