ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Local individuals and businesses/groups will have the chance to help make Liberal look festive for the holidays thanks to the Liberal Chamber of Commerce.
The Liberal Chamber of Commerce will again be hosting its Wrap-A-Lamp decorating contest, and people can sign up and register to decorate a lamp pole through us. The deadline to be assigned a pole is Nov. 15. Decorating can begin any time after Nov. 18, and the lamp poles must be fully decorated by Nov. 25. Chamber of Commerce staff will assign the poles to the people who register, and in order to do that, they need to get in touch with the Chamber office at (620) 624-3855. Staff will have a map of all the posts and assign a lamp to those who participate. This year, the categories will be Most Holiday Spirit, Most Inspirational, Most Creative, Most Whimsical, Most Original, and Most Humorous, and those winners will receive a $50 Chamber gift certificate.
This is the fourth year doing this contest, and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rozelle Webb said she and her staff have enjoyed the contest each year so far.
“We’re inviting civic groups, businesses and individuals to decorate a pole. As far as the rules, like every other year, the decorations must be Christmas-themed, we don’t want any political statements or anything obscene or anything like that, we just want the poles to be decorated for Christmas,” Webb said. “And so we don’t damage the poles – because they are City of Liberal property – we’re not allowing people to use wire or tape to keep everything on the poles. People can use zip ties or soft string to tie things on, but it’s recommended to use a piece of black material or bubble wrap, zip-tie that to the pole, and then glue your decorations to the black material, or something like that. There also won’t be any electricity available for the displays. We also ask people to make sure they secure their decorations to their pole since it can get extremely windy out in this area, and we don’t want the displays falling apart. And if it’s a business that has a pole, we don’t mind if they have their name as part of the decoration, because that’s also a good way to advertise your business – we still want the decorations to be focused on Christmas, but we will allow you to mention your business in some way in your decoration. We’d also like the participants to keep an eye on their pole and make sure everything stays secure and maintained, because they’re the one ultimately responsible for it.”
Webb said she was very pleased with last year’s competition.
“We had the same poles as last year, and almost every pole ended up being decorated, so everything ended up looking really nice and festive,” Webb said. “Business owners have told me they enjoy the competition because they and their employees get to use it as a fun team-building experience. I was really glad to have so many interested and excited parties in the competition last year who wanted to make Liberal look nice for Christmas.”
With that in mind, Webb said she hopes to see high turnout again for this year’s competition.
“I hope to see every pole decorated in our area, and again, any club, civic group or organization is welcome to join the competition and sign up,” Webb said. “And that also goes for businesses not on Kansas Avenue – no matter where you have a business in town, if you want to decorate a pole, we’ll gladly assign you one. The poles always come out very unique and very nice, so I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with for their displays. The City is allowing us to decorate the poles from the railroad tracks all the way up to 8th Street, and that’s more than 50 poles, so I’m looking forward to seeing all of them decorated. And the past few years we’ve done this competition, we’ve gotten so many compliments and comments from local residents and people from out of town about how festive everything looks downtown because everything is decorated so nicely. I’m looking forward to seeing what the decorators are able to come up with and seeing downtown Liberal looking in the holiday spirit. And we changed the categories because people have put so much time and effort into their decorations the past few years we’ve been doing this competition, and that’s made it really hard for us to choose just the top three, because they all look so wonderful. We’re hoping, with the way we have the categories set up for this year, more prizes will be given out and more people will be recognized.”
Webb also offered encouragement for potential participants to go ahead and get signed up.
“We’ve already got some poles spoken for, even with very little advertising so far, so if you want to be in the competition and if there’s a specific pole you want, get into the Chamber of Commerce office and get signed up,” Webb said. “A lot of people are excited to be part of the competition for this year, and I’ve had multiple phone calls the past couple weeks asking when everything was going to kick off. It’s great advertising for your business or group, and if you do a good job, you might end up winning one of the $50 gift certificates from the Chamber. It’ll also be a great way to make the town look really festive for the holidays and get everyone in that festive spirit. Anything we can do to help with that at this time, that’s great. The creativity people in this town have is just amazing, and we’ve had some poles with some amazing decorations I would never have even thought of. It’s awesome seeing how the poles are all different and how they’ve drawn more people downtown.”
Overall, Webb said, she is excited to see what the community comes up with.
“I’d like to thank the City of Liberal for allowing us to do the competition, and they’ve allowed us to continue with the competition since we’ve shown the proper respect for the city property,” Webb said. “As long as we continue with that, we’ll continue having the competition. I love the creativity we’ve seen the past few years, and I can’t wait to see what people come up with for this year.”
