Canopy of Lights on Oxford’s Square to Shine Tuesday Evening

By Alyssa Schnugg
News Editor
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

Fourteen strands of lights are stretched from storefront to clocktower. Photo by Walter Lyle.

In an attempt to bring back a small part of Oxford’s “good ol’ days,” Mayor Robyn Tannehill asked the city’s building and grounds crew to re-create the popular canopy Christmas lights this year.

Greg Pinion, superintendent of the city’s Building and Grounds Department, said he and the mayor started talking about doing the canopy lights about a year ago.

“Best we can figure, this is how they used to string the lights in the 50s and 60s,” Pinion said.

Lights were draped from the storefronts to the clocktower on the Lafayette County Courthouse that created a canopy, or a carousel effect of lights around the center of the Square.

“They used to use colored lights,” Pinion said. “But we need to use LED lights due to the power load on the Square, and we couldn’t find good colored LED lights.”

Instead, the lights will be an off-white color, similar to incandescent lights.

“It’s a more traditional white than regular white LED lights,” Pinion said. “It creates a nice glow.”

There will 14 strands of lights leading from storefronts to the clocktower.

“We went a little bit lower on the attachment points,” Pinion said. “It’s created more of a canopy feel.”

The lights will be turned on at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday right before the Oxford Board of Aldermen meeting at 5 p.m. Along with the canopy lights, the regular Square Christmas lights, including the colorfully-lighted crepe myrtle trees, will also be turned on.

Tannehill said she hopes the lights help to bring back nostalgic memories of Christmas’s long-ago for many of Oxford’s residents.

“Greg and his crew have worked hard on getting this done,” Tannehill said recently. “We’re all very excited to turn the lights on (Tuesday).”