On Wednesday, the Top O’ Texas Republican Women held their monthly meeting with guest speaker, Assistant City Manager Dustin Miller relfecting on the success of the 2024 Celebration of Lights and provided updates on the progress and next phase of the Downtown Revitalization project, answering questions during the presentation.
“First I want to start by saying thank you all for what you do, not just for our country and our state, but you look around this room and these are the faces you see that are very active within our community so I appreciate all you do for the city of Pampa on behalf of the city of Pampa,” he said.
“Most of you probably remember the Celebration of Lights in the early to mid-90s and it kind of disappeared. The very first Celebration of Lights was done by volunteers. These people worked year round and built their own features and structures and literally wrapped every single light around everything. But I guess with like most things, it kind of just faded out.”
“Before I worked for the city, I worked for Pampa ISD as a teacher and a coach until 2012. In 2012, I left the school and was offered a job with the city and probably in my second or third year, we stumbled upon a storage building that had some of the old Celebration of Lights features in it. The only reason we found them is because someone called from Tennessee and wanted to buy them from the city. We didn’t have very many of them left.”
“I approached our City Manager at the time, Shane Stokes who is still our City Manager and we took it to the commission and said, hey, we want to start this up again. How can we go about this?”
“We probably had about five fixtures left from the original Celebration of Lights and the very first year we were open, we put those out along with some new ones and 2017 was year one.”
“We wanted to keep it to where the city takes it on and didn’t have to have the community work on it year round. That was our goal and we wanted it to be 100% donation-basesd. Still to this day I don’t want a family of five to feel like they cannot go and enjoy Christmas lights because they just can’t afford it. I don’t care if they don’t give 25 cents, that’s perfectly okay. I just want you to bring your family and make memories for a lifetime.”
“They asked well what do you expect to make in donations and I said, well, I’d like to make 3 or 4,000. I think that would be an incredible first year. That first year..we made $17,000. If that tells you anything about the community that we live in and the generosity of our community-I was just blown away.”
“We just finished year seven and any money that is donated and raised, 100% goes into next year’s display. We don’t collect and save that money, it goes directly toward the next season.”
Dustin then gave a breakdown of the amount of donations and where they came from:
Jingle Bell Run-$3650
Cocoa Shack-$5,173.95, run and provided by the Davis Family and chocolate chip cookies donated by Chicken Express
Corporate Donations-$4,500 from Flogistix, ProMan USA and Xcel
Private Donations-$500 from Wendell and Charla Shults
Gate Donations-$23,961.35
Total-$37,785.30
Dustin also mentioned the gender reveal event for his grandbaby and the amount of overwhelming support and joy expressed from the community during that time.
“My oldest child is expecting my first grandbaby and they had this idea for a gender reveal and it was pretty expensive. And they said, why don’t we do something at the park. I called the guy who does the programming for our big tree-if you’ve ever been out there, there’s a big tree that is animated to music and you can watch it from the parking lot. I told him I just needed a real quick gender reveal with the tree and everything to flash pink and blue and just goes on for a minute until it ends up in just pink or blue. And he said, I think we can do that.”
“He got so excited and sent us what we needed in two weeks. We got a boy card and a girl card that plugs in the tree. There’s a plug in for a microphone where you can talk to people in their car, so I wanted to make an announcement on what was going to happen that night and not to panic if the show stops for a minute, but it wasn’t working. So I made a Facebook post on the Celebration of Lights page about what was going to happen and in turn, it brought a lot of people to the park.”
“We put the family in front of the tree and we had the lights going and there was music, and we found out it’s going to be a boy. There was a line of cars as far as you can see and there horns were honking and people were yelling and it was the coolest thing.”
“I do still have the boy and girl card, so if you know anyone who wants a gender reveal out there, it’s set up and ready to go. Just send them my way.”
Dustin then addressed the Downtown Revitilization Project.
“I love our Downtown Pampa and a lot of people love Downtown Pampa, and it’s become a thing where people want to have an event on the bricks. So about 2018-19 we applied for our first Downtown Revitalization grant, but we were not given it that year, so we applied again the next year for $350,000 and were awarded it. So that was Phase One and the 200 block of Cuyler is complete now.”
Attendants of the meeting were given a packet that included photos of what the curbs sidewalks along the storefronts looked like compared to what they look like after the construction and renovations.
The photos included crumbling curbs and busted concrete from trees and roots growing through, as well as the steep concrete steps that used to lead up to the front door of the Coney Island Cafe before the renovations of the sidewalk took place.
There was also a fascinating sketch of a reimagining of Downtown Pampa from 1969 that still had Woolworth’s included on the Corner where Pampa Furniture and Sleep Store is now. The next page was a 2021 reimagining sketch of Downtown Pampa that closely resembled the 1969 version.
“The purpose of that in 1969 was to generate foot traffic and to promote businesses downtown and most importantly the safety of the people shopping. That’s why they had the bumpouts-for safety, to slow traffic down. And that’s why we have them now.”
Dustin said that he would like to include street lamps with Pampa Downtown banners along the sidewalks as shown in the sketches, but that would be a future endeavor as they include electrical and irrigation work.
Phase Two will start on Tuesday where the construction on the sidewalks and the street will take place on the 100 block of Cuyler. Once that is complete, Phase Three will include the block where the VFW and White Deer Land Museum sit.
Dustin addressed concerns about the bumpouts and the purpose of them, as well as the slopes that replaced the steep steps in front of the coney. He also addressed the issue of the historic bricks that get taken out of the streets and the citizens’ concerns of where they go.
“We have donated some to the museum because she (Anita) will have events with kids who play with the bricks. They teach them how the bricks were laid and we do have some of them at the water tower. I promise we never throw any of them away.”
The TOTRW meeting also introduced the 2025 officers and are as follows:
Kathryn Green-President
Cathy Scribner-Vice President
Kathy Amerson-Treasurer
Kathy Cavalier-Secretary
Brenda Guess-Legislative Officer
Brenda Condo-Campaign Activity Chairman
Gloria Robbins-Chaplain
Congratulations ladies on your new positions and thank you Dustin Miller for an extremely interesting and informative presentation on what’s going on in this town we call home.
