A Marshall County man’s creativity with Christmas lights has been turned into a fundraiser this year for the Marshalltown Optimist Club. Eric Rodemeyer’s synchronized music and lights show at his home attracted statewide attention last year. This year, the show has been moved to the Marshall County Courthouse Square, for an even bigger show and bigger display area.

Optimist Club member, Pat Burskins, has been working with Rodemeyer since April to get the display set up. He says it includes eight 20-foot flagpole trees, each tree has 28 strings of lights, plus a star at the top. Burskins says the flagpole trees are just the beginning of the display. He says there are 30 four-foot spiral trees, and a snowflake arch. The feature that attracts the most attention is the synchronization of the lights with music.

There are 176 channels in the program, so 176 strings of lights could be on an off an any time. With the larger display, more programming was needed. Burskins says a lot of time was spent on the program.

Buskins says most of the work was done by Rodemeyer. There are eight different songs and each song took him more than 40 hours of programming. The display was lit Friday for the first time and will turn on each evening at 5:30 P.M., and be turned off around 9 P.M. The display will be up through December 31st.