kwch.com/news/salina/kwch-news-sba-group-lights-up-salina-museum-20121222,0,3747036.story

kwch.com

Group lights up Salina museum

By Samantha Anderson

9:12 PM CST, December 22, 2012

SALINA, Kan.

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Dean Gipe has been fascinated with Christmas lights since he was a kid.

"We had a lot of Christmas lights," Gipe said. "We lived on a farm."

You'd really have to like the sparkling little bulbs to spend every day since October 15 working with them.

Each year Gipe turns the Central Kansas Flywheels Museum grounds into a lighted drive almost half a mile long, but he doesn't do it alone. He has help from a few diligent volunteers.

"It's a lot of work," Ron Sutton, who helps Gipe, said. "People don't realize how many hours we put in here."

Gipe said that when they started they had 5,000 to 7,000 lights, but now they have 30,000. Gipe still says they could use more.

"I put up more light's every week," Gipe said. "I see a dark over here or over there, I get some more lights and put them on."

Drivers can give donations to the museum, but Gipe says there are other reasons for all of his hard work.

"I like doing it, mainly for the kids,"Gipe said.

"That's what Christmas is all about, the kids, the excitement, just looking at their eyes" Rod Rodgers, another volunteer said. "Their eyes are just glowing because of the light.