TIME TO DONATE TO THE MONONGAH CHRISTMAS LIGHTS FUND

 

Lights to the right of them

 

Lights to the left of them

 

Lights in front of them

 

Honor the charges they made

 

Honor the Monongah Lights Brigade

 

-  - With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Susan Staron Sanders, Class of 1971, an administrative assistant at Personnel and The Angel of Thomas Street, began lighting up Monongah with Christmas street lights in 19??. There are so many now that astronauts in space can see Monongah lit up every Christmastime.

But the cost of the electricity to make that happen and installing and taking down the lights is more than $4,000 every holiday season. And, with covid and other problems in America and Monongah this year’s Monongah Christmas Lights donations have fallen off considerably.

If you can afford to contribute, mail your check made out to

Monongah Christmas Lights Fund

to:

 

Susan Sanders
Monongah Christmas Lights Fund
Post Office Box 9051

Monongah, WV 26554.

I mailed mine to Susan. I don’t ask people to do something that I won’t do.

How about it? You want Monongah to continue to be famous for lighting up streets all over town every Christmas?

I call it The Charge of the Lights Brigade, a takeoff from the Tennyson rewrite at the top of this article.

White Hall gave the first lights free to Monongah in 2015 when White Hall replaced some of their Christmas street lights.

Or, as Susan told me:

“Whitehall donated 7 lights to me in 2015 to get me started. We now have 38 lights and Whitehall just gave me 2 more this year so it will make us 40. They need some work done on them but one of my guys is going to weld the hooks on them so we can put them up this year with the others.

“Wow 40 lights! I can't believe it and they all said it will never happen”

After the White Hall donation the current and previous Monongah residents began buying lights to honor their loved ones. I paid for the pearl in a seashell light on Church Street next to my childhood home at the Thomas Street intersection years ago. The pearl represents Christ and the seashell the tomb so it’s a round-about way of referring to the Resurrection of Christ during Christmas, which, of course, celebrates the birth of Christ.

Tina Ailstock, Mereca Savonarola, Valerie Aldridge and Connie Warash were on Susan’s first Christmas Lights Committee shortly after White Hall donated its lights to the town.

The Charge of the Light Brigade in 2022:

President - Susan Sanders

Vice President - Carolyn Tice

Secretary - Chelsea McCann

Treasurer - Linda McCullough

 

Alternates Chuck Tice - Josh Scritchfield

 

Volunteers Teena Field Ailstock - Rae Ann Carter - Amanda Hawkins - Robert Hawkins - Judy Cain Turner - Marsha Fluhardy - Sheila Runyan – Beth Campbell -- Bill McCullough (who helps wife Linda with the cooking at fundraising events).