Conway considers Christmas lights tour at Grainger site to pay for Lake Busbee

Jean Timbes has seen the light, and it’s electric-powered and multicolored.

The Conway councilwoman wants the city to host an annual Christmas lights tour, a drive-through event that would help the city pay for maintaining Lake Busbee.

With no recreation centers, police stations or other major building projects on the city’s schedule this year, Timbes hopes her peers will budget some money for a lights display.

“We don’t have any big things that we need to tackle right now,” she said. “Now is the time to do some small things that can be meaningful for the community. … This would be something that anybody can get into. Everybody loves Christmas.”

Timbes said her proposal can also bring in revenue for a project that’s been on city council members’ minds lately — preserving Lake Busbee.

Last week, Santee Cooper officials warned city leaders that if they couldn’t find the $100,000 a year needed to continue pumping water into the 330-acre lake, the utility would drain the water and allow the area to become wetlands.

City officials insist the lake should remain as it is, and they fear emptying it would create an eyesore along busy U.S. 501.

As they’ve considered options for funding the project, Timbes has touted a lights show as a possible fundraiser.

“We don’t have a lot of things that people can participate in without traveling elsewhere,” she said. “It’s a neat thing to take advantage of.”

During the council’s talks with Santee Cooper last week, city leaders saw a presentation about “Celebrate the Season,” the utility’s driving holiday lights tour that runs each winter in Berkeley County.

Those displays use efficient LED lights and power generated by Santee Cooper’s renewable energy program. Since the event began in 2011, the tour has raised more than $562,000 for charities. This year’s lights brought in nearly $154,000.

Conway officials have considered stringing lights at the former Grainger Generating Station site and lining Marina Drive with displays leading into downtown. Santee Cooper owns that 12-acres, though the city has expressed interest in purchasing the property.

“Those are some possibilities now,” councilman Tom Anderson said. “We don’t have to buy a 100-acre field.”

Anderson supports the lights tour.

“Years and years ago, there was the festival of lights in the city of Conway,” he said. “We want to do something. We just need to figure out how or what or where.”

Troy Diel, who runs Santee Cooper’s tour in Berkeley County, told city officials that the lights show is a moneymaker, but mainly because it relies on volunteer assistance.

“If I had to pay everybody that worked, it would not be,” he said. “The key thing to this thing is volunteers, volunteers, volunteers.”

For “Celebrate the Season,” Santee Cooper set up a lighted loop in the parking lot of the utility’s headquarters and a nearby park. They bought displays from a reputable manufacturer, sold sponsorships and charged $5 per vehicle. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, they held holiday fairs with food vendors, choirs and a Santa for photo ops.

Diel admits he was skeptical about launching a lights show when the concept was initially pitched to him. The results changed his mind.

“Just like the quote from the movie ‘Field of Dreams,’ if you build it, they will come,” he said. “When they asked me to do this, I was the most negative [person]. I said, ‘Nobody’s going to come.’ … But it’s amazing. Everyone loves Christmas. Whatever your religion is, it’s a happy holiday.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Conway considers Christmas lights tour at Grainger site to pay for Lake Busbee."