GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — The "Coast Guard City USA" letters on top of Dewey Hill in Grand Haven is a summertime icon.
However, each of those wooden letters weighs about 60 pounds, making it a challenge for Coast Guard personnel to haul up and down the hill every year.
Brad Boyink, the firework show director and a lighting specialist, asked Coast Guard Festival organizers if he could update the letters this year. They agreed, and funded the project.
"New lightweight material," said Boyink, "less maintenance, little more lights on them. Just going to make things a whole lot better for everyone."
The new, eight-foot letters are built out of a plastic called Coroplast, by a company called Holiday Coro. Boyink then added more than 3,000 LED lights and spent weeks programming them into choreographed routines.
The full color lights can do up to 16.7 million colors.
"They’re doing all kinds of special effects on them," said Boyink. "Lighting different patterns, a waving flag, firework effects."
The new letters will be installed on the hill in time for Coast Guard Festival this summer. The festival begins July 30.
Boyink will also choreograph the letters along to the 30-minute fireworks and musical fountain show during the festival. A process he called "intense."
"Some people pick up a paintbrush, others doing sculptures," said Boyink. "In a sense, I’m doing the same thing with light. For me, it's almost like a giant art project."
The new letters will also be less maintenance because the coroplast does not break down as easily as wood, and will not need to be repainted year after year.
"For me, it was all about making things easier for the Coast Guard personnel," said Boyink. "Trying to lug up 17 letters that are 60 pounds each, plus all the control hardware and networking, is really, really difficult. I wanted to make things easier for them."
RELATED VIDEO: Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival officially set to return at the end of July
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