Vo-tech students help with zoo light display
FARMINGTON – Those visiting the Woodland Zoo and Farmington Entertainment Park this winter will see some moose, a few bears and an armadillo, outlined in multicolored lights. For the first time, the zoo will host a winter light display, thanks to students from the Fayette County Vocational-Technical School who have put about 100 hours of work in the project within the last four weeks.
“Most of the displays are animals, but we’ve built some snowflakes, too,” said Gus Rossi, a teacher at the school.
Rossi said 28 students from electrical, welding and drafting classes are building the light displays for the zoo as part of a community service project.
“I’m proud of what the kids are doing. They’ve done an awful lot of work,” Rossi said. “They’re applying what they’ve learned in the classroom. It’s difficult to teach basic circuit lighting design on a chalkboard, but they understand it now.”
Rossi said the students are 90 percent done with the project, and soon they will mount the light displays, which average 5 feet by 5 feet, on poles in the parking lot. Not wanting to give away the surprise, Rossi said there might be a few animated light displays throughout the park.
Aside from the thematic difference, the light display at the zoo will be similar to the Overly’s Country Christmas light display held annually at the Westmoreland County Fairgrounds.
Rossi said 3,500 to 5,000 strands of lights will be used to illuminate the displays at the zoo. “It will be worth a drive up the mountain to see,” he said.
Darwin “Sonny” Herring, owner of the zoo, said he hopes to welcome visitors by Thanksgiving weekend.
Herring said people will be able to drive through and look at the lights.
“It will be free, but we’ll accept donations,” he said.
A graduate of the vo-tech, Herring said he and his wife, Jill, wanted to have a light display at the zoo this winter, and added that he was glad the technical school decided to take on the project.
“They do a lot of community service projects. They teach a lot of good classes and have a lot of good kids,” he said. “They don’t get the recognition they deserve.”
Although the zoo is underwriting the cost, Herring said Pettit Steel Fabrication in Wheeling, W.Va., helped out by advising the vo-tech students on design.
Herring said some electrical work had to be done to ensure the zoo would be ready for the light displays, but the work was minimal.
Rossi said the zoo has the perfect setup for a winter lights display.
“It’s tailor-made for what we’re doing,” he said. “The infrastructure was already in place to support the light displays.”
According to Herring, the display will be open until Christmas. The zoo is also open, and most of the animals, except for the bears that hibernate, are more active in the winter than they are in the summer, he said.
“We’re hoping to get some recognition for the kids at the tech school. We’re also trying to attract some more people to the zoo during the winter, when we’re generally not a hotspot for tourism,” he said, adding that he thinks the winter lights display will be a “big hit.”