ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Those wanting to help the community take on a more festive look will soon have just that chance 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. The deadline to be assigned a pole is Nov. 17, and decorating can begin any time after Nov. 14, with the lamp poles being fully decorated by Nov. 26. 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 Chamber gift certificate.
“Individuals, groups and local civic clubs are welcome to sign up, and they can sign up either at the Chamber of Commerce office or we can send them the application by email,” Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rozelle Webb said. “Like every year, only the poles assigned by the Chamber can be decorated, and this is a fun thing for businesses to do with their employees or a fun thing for a civic group or club to do for team-building. We would love to see every pole from the railroad tracks all the way up to 9th Street be decorated for the season. The team-building aspect is really fun and brings everyone together, which is great. Overall though, a main goal of this contest is to help make the downtown area look special and festive for the season because people will then tell other people to come and look at all the decorated poles.”
As far as rules, Webb said they are the same as in the past.
“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.”
The contest is still somewhat new to the community, and Webb said she has enjoyed seeing the community’s creativity and festivity each year.
“Everyone seems to have a lot of fun with the actual decorating, and it does bring a fair amount of shoppers to town, which is always a good thing,” Webb said. “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. I'm excited to see downtown look all festive and pretty for Christmas, that's always the best part. The winners will be announced in late November after everything is decorated, and we want to take a weekend to judge everything.”
And with the growth that has already been seen, Webb said she would like to see that continue as time goes on.
“I've enjoyed seeing the contest grow every year. I would love to have every pole from Pine Street to 15th Street decorated, but I know that probably won't happen,” Webb said with a laugh. “But if we could get all the available poles – and it's about 60 of them – decorated, I think that would make the town look really nice and special, and it's a great way to greet people who are coming in for the holidays. 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. 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.”
Overall, Webb said, she is looking forward to seeing the community take on a more festive look for the holiday season.
“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,” Webb said. “And if there's a particular pole you want to decorate, go ahead and get signed up, because the poles actually get snatched up pretty quickly, so there's a possibility we'll run out. I'd also 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. 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.”
