Cleveland Road light show is back

Published 9:00 am Saturday, December 11, 2021

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The multi-house Christmas light display on Cleveland Road in Valley is back and ready to dazzle passersby. From 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. EST on weekdays and from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on the weekends, visitors can turn their car radios to 107.9 to see the lights synchronized with Christmas tunes.

Betty Vickers, who lives in one of the houses, estimated that the Cleveland Road light show has been going on for a decade.

“We work together to do it,” Vickers said. “Randy Hill, he [used to come] from Texas to visit his mom and dad. They have passed away, but he wants to keep [setting things up]. He’s kind of like an engineer, and the one that actually hooks it up for us. But we all have lots of [computer] boxes and all work together to do it.”

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Vickers said that the show runs on about 20 computer boxes.

She said Hill came and helped set things up this past Thanksgiving and that a family member of his lives in the house his parents used to occupy.

“He doesn’t do all the decorations,” Vickers said. “Usually, my grandson does mine and my daughter’s house and my sister’s house. So, my grandson does three houses and Randy does two of them.”

Vickers said the display hasn’t changed much since last year.

“We’ve added some more arches and some more trees,” she said.

The lawns of one of the houses is covered in blow-up characters.

Vickers guessed that there are 10 or more songs on the radio station, which Hill helps set up every year. She said the houses mainly use LED lights, but there are some incandescents as well.

“I think the five houses together, there’s not any places around here with that many connected. And just being with the music is very special,” she said. “The kids, especially, love that.”

Vickers said the week of Christmas, cars line up on the entire road. Fortunately, she said traffic never gets bad enough that police have to direct it.

Heading north on Highway 29, Cleveland Road is the first right past Valley High School. Heading south, it’s the first left before the school.