The Circle of Lights is aglow above Indianapolis’ Monument Circle. Indianapolis Local 481 Business Manager Steve Menser is interviewed during this year’s Circle of Lights opening ceremony on Nov. About 200 gather on a Saturday in November and unpack six miles of light strands and two miles of garland from 55-gallon drums. Those members have done it on a volunteer basis ever since. They approached Local 481, asking its members for help installing lights. The Circle of Lights has been an Indianapolis tradition since 1962 and city officials wanted the IBEW’s expertise from the start. You can’t imagine the satisfaction of being on a jobsite and having your son work next to you.” “That was something I probably didn’t have a grasp on in the past. “The last two years I’ve been gone, I think it’s allowed him to spread his wings and basically be recognized as Sam and not my son,” Mike said. Mike Hunter, who retired in 2014, enjoys seeing his son revel in it. It’s like I’m the guy with a screwdriver who has been turning all the screws. “It’s kind of like one of those muscle memory things,” he said. Now, like his dad before him, he has to ensure the lights come on just when they’re supposed to on the Friday night after Thanksgiving in front of about 100,000 people and countless more watching on television throughout the Hoosier State. His father might have let him plug in a lightbulb if he behaved himself. In the early days, Sam’s biggest responsibility was distributing doughnuts to the volunteers from Local 481 helping to hang the lights on the 284-foot Soldiers & Sailors Monument. “I understand a lot of the reasons that drew him to get involved,” Sam said. He’s receiving the compliments and thanks from a community that views the annual lighting on downtown’s Monument Circle as a civic treasure. He’s taken over his father’s duties installing and maintaining the electrical feeders for the strands of lights. Now 10 years into his own career as a journeyman wireman and member of Indianapolis Local 481, Sam understands exactly why Mike Hunter felt that way. “It was definitely something for him to take his children down to, look at the Christmas tree and say, ‘I wired that.’ There’s a little bit of an appreciation factor there you don’t get in every line of work.” “It was an opportunity for him to give back to his community,” Sam said. Sam, now an Indianapolis Local 481 member, has taken over his father’s duties on the annual Circle of Lights display. Mike Hunter holds his then 4-year-old son Sam in 1989.
Even at that young age, he sensed this was something very special for Dad. Sam Hunter remembers being five or six years old when his father first brought him and younger brother Greg along to help with Indianapolis’ Circle of Lights.
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