The fledgling holiday lights show planned for this December on the campus of Arkansas State University-Mountain Home is hoping to add some sponsors to help fund the purchase of the lights it needs.The drive-thru holiday light display, which does not have an official title yet, is a co-production of the City of Mountain Home, the Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce and ASUMH. All three entities last week issued news releases touting the holiday light show and listing the sponsorship opportunities that exist.
Mountain Home Mayor Hillrey Adams says the startup light show needs about $60,000 to finish purchasing all the lights it plans on using in the display. Adams says the plan is scale the display up or down depending on how much funds are available to purchase lights.
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Adams says the hope is to illuminate a path from one end of the ASUMH campus to the other. Current plans call for motorists to enter the drive-thru display off of College Street, travel across the campus, pass in front of the Vada Sheid Community Development Center and eventually exit on Highway 62.
That display could be trimmed back should organizers not have enough funds to light the whole path. In such a case, the display would most likely be centered around the Sheid.
The planned per-car cost of the drive-thru display varied among the news releases issued by the city, the college and the Chamber last week. Adams says no admission price has been established yet.
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Adams says he envisions the light display attracting visitors from across the state. In addition to paying an admission to travel through the display, visitors would perhaps take in a meal while in the area and possibly refill their gas tanks, adding more money to the local economy.
A similar holiday light display at Batesville, dubbed “White River Wonderland,” saw 60,000 cars paying $10 per carload todrive through that display last December. That display returns every year and is fully self-sufficient, using the money generated from one year’s admissions to fund the following year’s display.
The Mountain Home display could theoretically open the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and remain up through the first week in January.
For more information on sponsorship opportunities with the drive-thru light display, contact Mollie Morgan at the ASUMH Development by calling 870-508-6191 or emailing mmorgan@asumh.edu.
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