80 days remain until Thanksgiving this year. The team at the Frankfort Parks Department have already started to install lights for the famous ‘Festival of Lights’ display that will begin on Thanksgiving evening at the 89 Acre Park on the northeast side of Frankfort. Parks Department personnel are already starting the task of assebling over 1 million lights for this year’s display. This year, for the first time, the Indiana National Guard will deploy about 45 personnel for one day to help with the assembly.
TPA (Travelers Protective Association) park started in 1911. The annual tradition of Christmas Lights started in the 1990’s during the Harold Woodruff administration with Travis Sheets as Park Superintendent. The 1,000,000+ light display is generally rated in the top 10 displays in Indiana and one of the few displays that is free to all with a free will donation.
The Parks Department this year is tackling, first, one of the most difficult displays to put up, and that is the light tunnel near the main Picnic Shelter near the playground. WILO 96.9 FM, WILO 1570 AM and Boone 102.7 FM will start playing wall to wall Christmas Music every evening when the lights go on and during the daily broadcast, WILO will interview all the park personnel who do the difficult task of assembling the million lights.
The Indiana National Guard will help assemble the lights this year at TPA park on one day in mid-October. About 45 National Guard personnel will work on the displays for one day this year for the first time ever.
