Jack of all lanterns: Man's yard alight with Halloween spirit

Stephen Cooper is a military missile defense instructor with a pumpkin patch that’s out of this world.

He synchronizes 68 plastic pumpkins into a sound and light show in his front yard.

The 44-year-old Air Force veteran started animating pumpkins to the beat of spooky songs four years ago by using some of the same hardware and software from his Christmas extravaganza.

He originally was inspired by the computer-animated Christmas light display featured in a Miller Beer commercial. “It evolved to Halloween,” he says.

Cooper paid $10-$15 a head for the light-up plastic gourds and used a wood-burning tool to carve spiders, faces, cats and skeleton designs.

He has about $6,000 invested in the holiday decorating passion that family members support.

“My wife sits and watches and says, ‘That looks good, honey,’” he says.

Their daughter, Emily, comes home from college to help Dad. “She sometimes rolls her eyes,” he says, “but she has fun with it.”

Cooper says the neighbors don’t complain about “Thriller” and “Purple People Eater” blaring from the speakers in his front yard on Halloween.

Sound for his expansive Christmas light show is by radio tuner to keep the noise level down. “It creates a traffic jam,” he says.

It doesn’t take the mind of a missile man to turn a yard into a techno traffic-stopper.

Anybody could do it, he says. If so inclined.

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DETAILS

Stephen Cooper’s pumpkin show

When: 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: 2635 Clapton Drive in Briargate’s Summerfield subdivision near Research and Union Boulevards.