I’m going to let you in on a little secret…

Cherryland Electric Cooperative employs a pretty important local celebrity—especially around this time of year. Have you ever seen a Christmas tree, covered in lights, floating in the middle of Glen Lake?

Well, that’s the handy work of Cherryland Engineering and Operations Manager Frank Siepker, and the story behind his passion project will fill you with warm holiday spirit like your favorite cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows on top.

Frank’s wife loves decorating for Christmas, but, “Where we live, there’s not really an easy way to decorate the roadside of our house because there’s a big tree buffer between our house and the road—so there’s not a lot of opportunities there,” he explained. “So I had this idea to stick a Christmas tree on the boat—stick it out on the lake in front of our house,” Frank continued. That was back in 2014. The first attempt included a 4×4 post, some old artificial Christmas tree limbs, and a big, plastic Santa Claus.

Over the years, Frank’s festive experiment evolved—and took him on a few unexpected adventures. In 2016, the boat went missing and required a rescue mission, Santa in tow. Then in 2017, the boat tipped over, lighting up the lake from within. And in 2018, the tree’s power source saw some upgrades.

The 10- to 12-foot, high-tech tree is now sustained by three solar panels that put out about 1,000 watts of power to keep around 1,000 little lights glowing from Thanksgiving weekend to New Year’s Day.

With some help from co-workers like electrical engineer Chris Vermeulen, Frank says, “We can now monitor battery voltage, and we can monitor water temperature and get real-time status on the tree lights. We can turn them on and off remotely. So it’s kind of just become a project to see what we can and can’t do and how we can be successful within the environment that we’re dealing with out there.”

When asked if the tradition will continue this year, Frank said, “Yeah, of course. It’s an expectation now. It gives us something to do and keep an eye on. We’ve had a lot of fun.”

Mark your calendar for the Sunday after Thanksgiving and make the trip over the M-22 bridge on Glen Lake before the new year to enjoy Frank’s commitment to spreading a little Christmas cheer.

“It’s just kind of a simple, peaceful something out there. It’s fun to drive across the bridge and see it lit up out there on the lake, bobbing in the waves,” Frank said.