For 40 years, Dennis Erickson held his breath the moment before the lighting of the tree at the annual Festival of Lights.

Every year, he breathed a sigh of relief after the switch was flipped and the blues, yellows, reds and greens sparkled out from the long boughs of the evergreen that stands in front of Beardshear Hall.

“I’m always tickled when the lights go on,” Erickson said, manager of Facilities Planning and Management.

This year, the Festival of Lights was canceled due to budget cuts but was later replaced with “A Winter Celebration: The Festival of Lights,” sponsored by Veishea.

Jessica Carlson, general co-chairwoman of Veishea, said it was the start of a new tradition.

In Erickson’s final days before retirement, he was asked to help introduce that tradition by being the person to flip the switch that would turn on the lights at the Memorial Union.

It was a tall request for a man who prefers to remain quietly in the background.

Carlson said he was the perfect man for the job.

“We thought it would be befitting to usher in the new tradition we’re starting before he leaves,” she said.

The festival was held in the front of the Union, where tubas played “Jingle Bells,” and students wrestled in the new snow. Luminaries were placed along the sidewalk and the Campanile tolled out Christmas songs while people huddled together with hot chocolate.

Government of the Student Body representative Angela Groh, Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Hill and Erickson’s daughter, Lindsay Erickson, junior in elementary education, all spoke.

Each one toted Iowa State’s rich history of tradition for its students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Dennis understands that tradition.

He has been at Iowa State long enough to see four university presidents come and go, to watch trees he planted as saplings grow as tall as the stately buildings that surround them and long enough to watch his daughter, Lindsay, grow up and become a part of the university and part of the Veishea tradition.

Dennis met his wife, Gloria Erickson, at Iowa State, started his career here and raised his family here.

Lindsay said her family bleeds cardinal and gold.

“I’ve been a Cyclone fan all my life,” she said.

Dennis has never abandoned his Cyclones. He has watched the men’s basketball team from the same seats since Hilton Coliseum opened in 1971: section nine, row six, seats one, two and three.

In all these years, he has never left a game early.

“We stay until the bitter end,” he said. “I figure it’s their job to stay out there, and it’s our job to stay there and watch.”

Lindsay, who as a child used to lie under the bleachers on the cement when football games got long, said she remembers being able to name the numbers and positions of Cyclone players when she was little. She still boasts about the 1992 game when the Cyclones beat the Huskers 19-10.

Dennis said it is important to him to support the university.

Gloria, program assistant for Facilities Planning and Management, said he takes a lot of pride in this university.

“Every time we go from one end of the town to the other, we always go through campus,” she said.

In the past 40 years, Dennis has been meticulous about taking care of the trees, shrubs and 34 miles of sidewalk that run through the campus.

It earned Dennis and his staff the honor of being one of the top 25 most beautiful campuses in the nation and the American Society of Landscape Architects award.

Humbly, Dennis doesn’t take credit for it. “I’m just a small piece of that,” he said.

He said he recalls years ago being out in the early morning hours, removing snow from deserted streets, seeing the twinkling lights of the tree in front of Beardshear and thinking how nice they made the campus look.

From his first job at Iowa State, mowing the lawn for a $1.05 an hour, to now, the last days before retirement, Dennis has stuck by the university and its traditions. As a master of the outdoors, he knows that, like the seasons, things change.

Tonight, starting the countdown that turns on the lights that are dotted across the bushes outside the MU, Dennis appears content surrounded by his wife and daughter.

This year might be different from others, but to Dennis, sometimes new traditions are just as good as the old ones.