HOUR GLASS

from Etc Magazine Winter 2022

FEATURE STORY

The Kilgore News Herald (Kilgore, Texas) · Wed, D 612146030 Kilgoreites have

always had that holiday spirit

Angie Bockman, left, and Janice Galaviz were elves on a Vertex RSI during Kilgore's Christmas parade in 2002. On the right, A replica derrick in the Crim Mercantile-Miss Lou Della’s Tea Room building was lit up for the holidays.

FILE PHOTOS

BY MEREDITH SHAMBURGER mshamburger@kilgorenewsherald.com

Ithink one of the best examples of Kilgore’s Christmas spirit is not the many parade photos we’ve published over the years, or even the men and women who have worked hard to decorate the derricks and buildings downtown through the decades. It’s a full page ad that ran on Dec. 16, 1993, when the News Herald and residents banded together to raise money for the Kilgore Area Youth Sports complex – “a project entirely dependent on contributions of labor, equipment, material and money.” The ad was for the Kilgore Community Christmas Card, and $1 got your name on the card, which was published Dec. 23 that year. eser Kilgore Youth Sports Complex Association President Steve Brown, in a letter on the printed card, wrote later that month “‘A ved. Field of Dreams’ says it all. It has been the dream of many of the adults involved to provide a permanent facility for the youth of Kilgore. The Community Christmas Card, and the many people who contributed to it, shows the support of the citizens of Kilgore for this project." That generosity is what Christmas is all about. But let’s also look at some of the fabulous lights, because I found some great examples. One is from the same Dec. 23, 1993 issue that the Community Christmas Card ran in: A replica derrick in the Crim Mercantile-Miss Lou Della’s Tea Room building was lit up for the holidays.

In November 1962, the News Herald ran an editorial thanking the men who provided Kilgore’s Christmas lights:

What would the Christmas season be without lights?

In the cold of the winter night, it would, no doubt, be a cheerless and solemn occasion – one ill-befitting a celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Christians have always had a special feeling for the warmth and symbolism of lights at Christmastime. Perhaps it is because the Scriptures tell of a light among shepherds, of a shining star over Bethlehem. They tell of a King who came to bring light to a dark world.

We might think on these things when we enjoy the cheer that downtown Christmas lights provide. Too often we take for granted what they add to the season.

Kilgore’s Christmas lights, which have received national recognition for their uniqueness and beauty, were begun in 1935

by merchants of the Chamber of Commerce…

A committee of merchants in the Chamber of Commerce felt so good about the outlook they met to plan something extravagant for the season… It was the first time Christmas lights had been put up in Kilgore. They started with a few strings across Main Street. The next year, lights were added on N. Kilgore and North Street. In 1937, someone stole all the lights from storage, and the men had to start all over again.

The following year, 1938, Elmer Driggers and Clady Glenn, servicemen with Southwestern Electric Power Co., got together with Southwestern’s Mgr. Oscar McCary and came up with the idea of placing a lighted star atop one of the many downtown oil derricks. The idea was accepted by merchants, and Southwestern’s men built and placed a star on a derrick between Main Street and the Missouri-Pacific Railroad depot…

Now there are 80 strings of lights and 30 derrick stars. The whole system contains 12,000 feet of wire, 7,500 colored light bulbs and is valued at about $60,000.

RIGHT: An ad for the Kilgore Community Christmas Card that ran on Dec. 16, 1993 is shown. ABOVE: Photos from past Christmas parades are shown. FILE PHOTOS