Coulters lend name to Mountain Home’s drive-thru holiday light display

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Photo (left to right): Mollie Morgan, development officer at ASU-Mountain Home; Dani Pugsley, Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO; Dr. Ed Coulter; Lucretia Norris Coulter; Hillrey Adams, Mountain Home mayor; Dr. Robin Myers, ASUMH chancellor.

The startup drive-thru holiday light display planned for Mountain Home this winter now has an official name.

The Coulter Celebration of Lights-Mountain Home will take motorists on a tour through an Arkansas State University-Mountain Home campus adorned with tens of thousands of holiday lights. The drive-thru display will open on Nov. 24 and remain lit through Dec. 27.

The display will bear the Coulter name after former ASUMH Chancellor Dr. Ed Coulter and Lucretia Norris Coulter donated $200,000. The Coulters’ donation was made in memory of Ed Coulter’s late wife, Fran Dryer Coulter.

Representatives from the City of Mountain Home, the Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce and ASUMH, the display’s three organizing bodies, held a news conference Friday morning at ASUMH’s Keller Green to announce the Coulters as the display’s naming sponsor.

Ed Coulter talks about supporting the holiday display.


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Current ASUMH Chancellor Dr. Robin Myers says that the display’s lights are currently being delivered. A group of volunteers will spend six weeks setting the lights and getting the display show ready.

Myers talks about plans for the display.


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The planned route for the display will have motorists enter the campus from College Street, drive past the Vada Sheid Community Development Center and exit onto Highway 62.

Myers says volunteers are still needed to put up the lights.

With the holiday season three months away, Ed Coulter says that he was shocked when he found out the organizers planned to launch the display this year.


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Coulter said he viewed this year’s display as a “soft opening” of sorts.


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Plans for future years include expanding the drive-thru route to include all of King Circle and every parking lot of campus. Future plans also include concession areas, activities and other entertainment.

Two weeks ago, all three of the display’s organizing entities issued news releases touting the holiday light show and listing the sponsorship opportunities that exist.

Ed Coulter says he appreciates that level of cooperation between the organizing bodies. He says that level of cooperation is one of the things that makes Mountain Home so special.

The planned per-car cost of the drive-thru display varied among the news releases issued by the city, the university and the Chamber. Last week, Mayor Hillrey Adams said that the display’s admission price had yet to be finalized.

A similar holiday light display at Batesville, dubbed “White River Wonderland,” saw 60,000 cars paying $10 per carload drive 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.

Sponsorships are available for specific sections within the Coulter Celebration of Lights display. Individual, business and corporate sponsorships at various levels are available. Displays can be customized to represent the sponsoring organization and signage will be displayed acknowledging the sponsor. Opportunities to volunteer to assist with the event are also available.

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