The Men Behind the Lights

The Sturgeon Bay Utilities line crew has been out in full force this week decorating the city with lights and giant lighted snowflakes for this weekend’s Christmas by the Bay. (From left) Cory Thayse, Chas Schink, Benji Potier, Craig Plutchak, Mitch Ducat and Scott Hoffman. Photo submitted by Sturgeon Bay Utilities.

Sturgeon Bay’s annual Christmas by the Bay festival showcases the city in all its holiday glory, with countless trees glowing in the night and giant white snowflakes guiding the way down Third Avenue. But who is responsible for decking the city’s outdoor halls? Look no further than the men of Sturgeon Bay Utilities’ line crew.

According to line crew foreman Benji Potier, a crew of six linemen spends the workweek leading up to Christmas by the Bay stringing lights up throughout the city. Those lights cover more than a dozen trees, including the official tree of the lighting ceremony, the Jefferson Street tree, a two-year-old tree in Sawyer Park, and three blocks of small trees running along both sides of Madison Avenue.

The men spend a good amount of time on the festival’s pièce de résistance – the official “tree lighting” tree next to Baylake Bank. The Jefferson Street tree, donated by residents in the city, is also the work of the line crew. It gives the men good practice for their own trees at home, since they go through with cutting down, loading and delivering the tree to its holiday location.

Potier says the crew puts up at least 60 sets of lights on the Madison Avenue trees alone, while the tree on Jefferson Street boasts anywhere from 24,000 to 30,000 lights.

“We usually try to keep track,” Potier says. “We count the boxes just because we’re curious ourselves.”

With the cold weather taking a swipe at Wisconsin early this year, Potier and the others are thankful that the renovation of Third Avenue and the subsequent removal of its trees and their replacement means the new trees are a bit too small to be decorated this year. This year, there are just more than a dozen trees that the crew needs to decorate.

“We’re fortunate that those trees are small yet,” Potier says with a laugh. “In a few years, that number’s going to grow a lot more. We used to decorate all those trees, too, but those trees are too small yet for lights.”

Despite the blowing, snowing and overall frigid temperatures that Potier has endured during the official “decorating week” for the past 15 years, he can’t deny that it is still rewarding to see the crew’s impact on the city’s holiday spirit.

“I live on the east side so I pretty much drive by the one on Jefferson hill on my way home every night so with the time change, it’s getting darker earlier, so it’s kind of nice to see … it’s nice to make it look pretty.”

And if one of those drives reveals “holes” where there should be twinkling lights?

“We’ll get on them pretty good with the tree looking bad,” Potier says.

So when the ooh’s and aah’s make their way through the crowd during the official tree lighting ceremony at 7pm on Friday night, take a moment to thank the men behind the city’s festive feel.