Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 23, 1993 TAG: 9312230291
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
Every year, the town's informal Christmas-lighting committee does just that. Just before Thanksgiving, five dozen strings of the big, old-fashioned bulbs - red, yellow, green, blue, orange - go up all around Fincastle.
Years ago, the name had a double meaning. Members of the group were known to celebrate a job well done by imbibing generously of Christmas spirits.
"There were times, in those earlier years, when perhaps some beverage was spread throughout the group, and just a joyous time was had by all," one of its founding members, State Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, remembers.
These days, the group has expanded to include youngsters and less hale-and-hearty adults, and that reason for the name has faded.
So for literal-minded folks who don't know of the group's origins, "Keep Fincastle Lit" sounds a bit strange.
"We had an accountant see that and say, `It ought to be "Keep Fincastle Well-Lighted," ' " said Willie Simmons, the group's informal leader.
The lights, replete with artificial wreaths, bring a special feeling to historic Fincastle during the holidays.
"All too often in the big cities, you have these slick, new ornaments," Trumbo said. "I know people from throughout my district who come to Fincastle to see these God-awful, gaudy Christmas lights."
It's a tradition that goes back four decades. The lights have never failed to go up - though there have been times when it looked like they might not.
The Fincastle Volunteer Fire Department started the tradition in the early 1950s, putting up a dozen or so strands of lights.
By 1967, the firefighters decided they couldn't do it anymore. The number of lights had grown, and it was a huge job to put them up and then go around to each strand night and day to turn them on and off.
Randall Cronise, then 13, didn't want to see the town go dark for the holidays.
He gathered together his friends - and their parents - and took charge of getting the lights up. The group named itself Junior Citizens of Fincastle.
In November 1969, calamity struck. A fire in a storeroom destroyed all the lights. It looked as though Fincastle would have no lights that Christmas.
But at the last minute, the city of Lexington, which had just bought new lights, donated its old ones.
"They were probably 20 years old when we got them," Cronise recalls. "But it was a godsend."
In 1971, the Junior Citizens helped start Fincastle's annual Christmas parade.
Eventually, though, many of the original members of the group graduated from high school and moved away.
By the mid-1980s, Cronise was in his 30s, no longer a "junior citizen." And the job had fallen almost completely on him and his family.
"A lot of times, it was Momma and Daddy and I out there putting out Christmas lights," Cronise says. "And that was it."
By 1985, Cronise decided he had to give up the job. "I loved it while I was doing it, but it became a chore."
That's where Keep Fincastle Lit came in.
Simmons, Trumbo and Jim Connell decided that they couldn't let the tradition die. They took over the responsibility.
Since then, Connell has moved out of town, and Trumbo has gotten himself hopelessly entangled in a political career. But others have pitched in, and Simmons can usually depend on 15 or 20 helpers come Christmas.
And where it once took several weekends to get the lights up, Keep Fincastle Lit has streamlined the process and now gets it done in a single weekend, with the help of bucket trucks loaned by businesses.
The light strands have been outfitted with photo sensors that turn them on at dark, so no one has to go around each evening and morning flipping switches.
The strands have been rewired and the bulbs replaced many times, but a good number of the sockets are the original, already-aging ones donated by Lexington in 1967.
Keep Fincastle Lit holds fund-raisers to cover expenses. Donations often come in the mail, unsolicited, from former residents who remember the lights.
The lights will come down Jan. 8, but they'll be back up again next November.
"I think they make Christmas for the town," Cronise says. "I think the town would be lost without them."
Donations can be sent to Keep Fincastle Lit, c/o Town of Fincastle, Fincastle 24090.
by CNB