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Podcast: S8 Ep. 33
Date: November 11, 2025
Title: LU Moment: Fifth annual Cardinal Lights serves holiday cheer | S8 Ep. 33
Host: John Rollins

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JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with Â鶹ÊÓƵ faculty, staff, students, and alumni. I'm John Rollins, associate director of community relations and public affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. It's officially November, so that means the holiday season has arrived, and here at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, we like to kick off the season every year with Cardinal Lights. So, this free community lighting event is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18, this year, and here today to tell us all about it, we've got Lamar’s Director of Event Management, Grayson Meek. So Grayson, welcome back to the LU Moment.

GRAYSON MEEK: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me.

JOHN: And I’ve got to let you know I broke my rule with you, because other than President Taylor, I've never had anyone on twice. So, you're my first repeat besides our president.

GRAYSON: You think we can get to a three-peat next year?

JOHN: Right? Let’s keep it going. I mean, we’ve got to talk about Cardinal Lights, right? This is a staple. This is a community event, which—we have a few of those throughout the year—but this is one of our larger ones.

GRAYSON: I feel like Darlene Love on the Letterman Show, and I come back every Christmas, every holiday.

JOHN: Yeah, she always pops back up, right? So let's jump right in—Cardinal Lights 2025. What can folks expect?

GRAYSON: Well, John, that's a great question. Folks who have attended the event before can actually expect quite a lot of changes this year. We're going to change the order around. We're going to be offering some different activities, so I don't necessarily want to spoil anything—but I guess I will. We are going to have the lights on throughout the event. In the past, you would have come, and we would have lit those up while people were kind of gathering. We're going to just cut right to the chase—have the lights on when you get here so that you can move around freely. All of the activities for kids are going to be open this year. We're also going to be changing the location a little bit so that we're still at the Reaud, but we are behind the Reaud on the intramural field. So, with the exception of food and possibly a few other things, everything will be on that field—Santa, our sponsors, our great sponsors. Yeah, we're going to have a stage. We're going to have live performances from the College of Music. It should be fantastic.

JOHN: Well, you bring up the intramural field—for folks who have not been to Lamar’s campus since Cardinal Lights last year—they're in for a treat. That field is amazing.

GRAYSON: It's amazing. It's state of the art. It's got some industrial lighting, which means that the space is no longer kind of romantically dim. It's going to be extremely well lit, which should be a lot of fun. It'll allow you to kind of see your friends from across the field—you know, maybe wave, right? Tell them to come on over and see you. “I can see you!” Yeah, and I think that we are also going to add a couple of food trucks this year. We're going to have some of the same old favorites, like cookie decorating for the kids—that'll take place in the food court area.

JOHN: So even beyond that, I know you bring up the sponsors, so we have to shout out our presenting sponsor, ExxonMobil. I believe they've been here since the beginning.

GRAYSON: Since the beginning, yeah.

JOHN: And this is the fifth year—a huge, huge deal. Fifth year, everybody come out for that. But yeah, five years in a row, Exxon has come out as our lead sponsor, and we can't thank them enough. We've got other sponsors as well, but they do continue to support.

GRAYSON: We appreciate them. We do—all of our sponsors, of course—but ExxonMobil especially. They are major contributors not only to the kind of financial footprint, but their participation allows us to up the ante a little bit every year. In fact, this year, thanks to their participation, we are going to be adding a drone show.

JOHN: Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. That was going to be my next question. So for folks who don't know necessarily what a drone show is, could you explain that?

GRAYSON: What is a drone show? That is a good question, John. So, drones will fly into the air, and the drones will project images when they're in the air so that if you're on the ground looking up, you see lighted images in the sky above you—in the night sky. These will be kind of holiday-themed. There may be some other treats and surprises involved in terms of what we do project, but provided that we have good weather—clear sky, not a lot of wind—this event will take place. We'll do our drone show. The plan is to have that sort of tucked away later into the evening so it's nice and dark, and we've given people the chance to kind of get around all the other activities. And we will do a countdown. We'll have our traditional contest that's open to folks here on campus who want to submit their stories and compete for the chance to press the button that starts the drone show.

JOHN: Now how exciting is that? And you know, in the past, we flipped the switch that turned on the lights, but as you brought up earlier, when you arrive this year, campus will already be decorated and lit. So we do have that drone show to look forward to. Like you said, also come get your food from the food trucks. We're going to have food trucks available, the cookies and the hot cocoa. Go visit all of these. We'll have the blow-up inflatables for the children. Santa will be there. Go visit the sponsor booths—they've got fun, interactive activities and giveaways. Just a really good time for our community.

GRAYSON: Absolutely. It's been growing every year. It's something that the community and the students really seem to enjoy. We are really appreciative of Dr. Taylor and the leadership team for advancing this every year, making it a priority. We're excited to celebrate the start of the holidays with the community.

JOHN: Yes, and so, okay—bringing up Dr. Taylor, I know a lot of people have mentioned that this event falls even before Thanksgiving, so we do need to address that. But there's a reason for that. Our leadership—yeah, President Taylor and our leadership team—everything we do, we are a college campus at the end of the day, right? So everything we do, we like to involve our students. And a lot of them take their finals right before Thanksgiving, and they're gone by that holiday. So this is our chance to include them in yet another event. So I think when you look at it from that angle, we want the community to come out, of course, but we always want our students to be involved in what we're doing.

GRAYSON: Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense too, just given that, I mean, we're extending the amount of time the décor can be up. We are allowing people to enjoy it for a little longer than they might otherwise get to.

JOHN: Yeah, absolutely. So, Grayson, how long have you been at Lamar?

GRAYSON: I have been at Lamar 12 or 13 years.

JOHN: Wow. You’ve got a lot of tenure here.

GRAYSON: Yes, I do. Got a lot of secrets. I'm kidding. I don't have any secrets. There are none.

JOHN: Is there anything exciting going on within your department—you know, the Office of Event Management? I feel like y'all have got something new in the works. You usually do. What's going on?

GRAYSON: We do. We've got some really exciting things in the works. We are, in the summer of 2026, planning to launch 25Live on campus. 25Live is an event scheduling and management software. Our goal is to have all reservations for non-academic spaces—so classrooms will continue to be handled in Ad Astra—but our goal is to have all reservations come through 25Live. We will handle updates there. We will handle coordinated work orders, things of that nature, and that way everything stays central, it stays trackable. It's a major improvement for us in terms of transparency, safety, and being able to structure the flow of our resources. It's going to create a lot of efficiency. It's giving us the opportunity to look at policies, procedures, and pricing—things that we've known for a long time have needed a little bit of attention and coordination. So I'm very excited about it.

JOHN: Well, it keeps Lamar current, you know? It keeps things updated, keeps everything current and kind of in one spot, which is—you know, we talk about that across campus a lot. A little more coordination with what we do is always kind of at the forefront of our thought process. So I love that your area is making strides.

GRAYSON: Well, thank you so much. I hope for the opportunity to come back and talk about it when we're a little bit closer to launch. I can kind of give folks a little bit more information about it. For now, just suffice to say, if you are someone on campus who schedules events or approves events, it's relevant to you right now. For everyone else, it'll become more relevant later on, and we do intend for everyone to have kind of a view-only access, at least.

JOHN: Yeah, fantastic. So, anything else going on in your department that you want to chat about?

GRAYSON: Well, there are a lot of things going on in the department. I don't know that I'm at liberty to say them.

JOHN: Okay, again, maybe there's an opportunity to discuss things in the pipeline, as they say—works in the works.

GRAYSON: Absolutely.

JOHN: So, okay, I looked at our chat from last year when I had you on, and you mentioned something that I think—you’ve got to be thriving right now, because you enjoy cold weather and hate hot weather.

GRAYSON: I enjoy cold weather. Yeah, I would not describe what's been happening so far as cold weather—cool-ish, I suppose. We're heading in the right direction, John. I'm thrilled about it. I do have a sweater on. I regret it today because it ended up being like 92. But in spirit, I'm there. I'm in Colorado. I'm headed down the run.

JOHN: Okay, very nice. So in a perfect world, in your mind, people would all be bundled up at Cardinal Lights.

GRAYSON: Yes, okay, and feel free to bundle up anyway—great for pictures.

JOHN: For sure. So anything else you'd like to touch on? I know you're involved with a lot on campus, so this is your show. We've got a few minutes left. Anything you want to bring up?

GRAYSON: Well, there are a number of events that are exciting and kind of on the schedule. They are taking place next year. One of those would be the Fisher Lecture, which is the final lecture in the series this year. We are very, very close to cementing our agreement with a speaker. He's preeminent in his field, I should say, and we're hoping to have a lot of input and guidance from Ashley Dockens because the topic is AI.

JOHN: Oh, wow. Yep, Ashley's our resident AI expert.

GRAYSON: Absolutely.

JOHN: What a relevant topic, too, for the times.

GRAYSON: Yes, definitely for these times.

JOHN: So this AI event will be held in the University Theatre, correct?

GRAYSON: Correct—the University Theatre.

JOHN: Well, speaking of venues—something to look forward to—and I know we see you all over campus. If there's a groundbreaking or any type of renovation going on, Grayson’s out there with the shovels and the dirt getting ready for the groundbreaking photo, right? You're always available and there to help. So, tell us about the Mary and John Gray Library and its fantastic renovation that is going on right now.

GRAYSON: I'd be so happy to tell you about that, John. So obviously, there are multiple floors. There are kind of multiple phases to the project. But if I am able to share this with you—I think I can—we've been told that our staff will be able to move back into the eighth-floor office probably sometime in the next month. It's going to look a lot different. For those who've been up there before, you were greeted right off the elevator by one large room and then two smaller rooms in back. For a lot of logistical reasons, that just began to not make sense. What we've done is expand, in a big way, the kitchen. So the kitchen is now a full-service kitchen. It's pretty fantastic—state of the art. They're going to have everything they need there to do the kind of upscale dinners that we typically do for the president's office or for donors, those types of things. It's going to be one large ballroom. It'll now have kind of a pre-entry space, the way that the Setzer Student Center does—the pre-function space outside of the ballroom. It's a little smaller than that, but it'll work for filtering people through the doors. It's going to be incredible. I think that it will be a little while before we're, of course, booking events up there. I think the first major event that we do up there will be in February. But we have some exciting things in the works. There are a lot of really cool conversations happening about bringing weddings back to Lamar.

JOHN: I was just about to ask you—is any of this open to the public?

GRAYSON: So yeah, tentatively speaking, it's going to be a major part of revenue generation going forward. Again, not right away, but with a little bit of time and planning.

JOHN: Fantastic. Well, you said February—honestly, we're going to blink, and it's going to be February.

GRAYSON: Right.

JOHN: Yeah, that's fantastic. And for anyone who does attend Cardinal Lights, we urge you to drive past the library—whether you're coming in by Subway or whichever way you go—but it's full glass windows now. I mean, it looks so different, so modern, and it's got the natural light coming through now.

GRAYSON: Yeah, it doesn't look quite as forbidding.

JOHN: Right, right, right. I think it's still got the red brick, but got the glass windows to see in and out of it.

GRAYSON: Yes, exactly—a little more friendly.

JOHN: Fantastic. Well, thank you for all you do on that front, for sure. So let's go over Cardinal Lights details one more time—date, time, location. How can folks find out more information?

GRAYSON: Well, the best way to find out more information is to visit www.lamar.edu/cardinallights—all one word. You'll have access to the updated footprint, map information. If we make an announcement about a rain cancellation, it'll be there. So make sure that you're checking that on the day of if the weather looks at all disagreeable. That is something that we've made the decision to do this year—if there is a rainout or if there is a lot of wind, we can't launch the drones, so we will cancel the event. And obviously, the website would be the place to get that update, as well as social media.

JOHN:  Totally. We've got the Facebook event—always go back to that. We'll probably share the map there as well. But like you said, it is a rain-or-shine event. Free admission. The only thing you would need to bring money for is if you plan to eat with us—from the food trucks. So everything else is free, provided for the community.

GRAYSON: Yeah, and in terms of the other particulars, you can arrive at 6:00 and plan to be headed out somewhere around 8:00. And that's on Tuesday, November 18, from 6 to 8 p.m.

JOHN: And like Grayson said, visit that website—lamar.edu/cardinallights. All the information will be there. Check out the Facebook event. All the things are there for you. And Grayson, thanks again for joining me today.

GRAYSON: Thank you, John.

JOHN: I feel like we covered a lot.

GRAYSON: We did. We covered a lot of ground. Thank you, John. It's always a pleasure.

JOHN: Always good to have you. So as we wrap up another episode, please make sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with the events, activities, programs, and people right here at Â鶹ÊÓƵ. This is John Rollins, your host. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.