A crowd was gathered on the historic courthouse lawn Wednesday night, waiting for the Christmas lights to be illuminated and the Wonderland of Lights festival to officially begin.

A hitch occurred.

Shreveport's KTBS Television wasn't ready.

So State Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, was forced to talk some more to the crowd. And then some more and some more and some more.

Hughes talked about how many lights Marshall has downtown this year (nearly 10 million), how many are attached to the courthouse (125,000), and when the first Christmas lights were used (1882) and when the first Christmas lights were used at the White House (1901 during President Grover Cleveland's administration).