An Osborne update - Jennings Osborne, the Arkansas businessman who was successfully sued by neighbors who opposed his massive Christmas light display donates lights to Disney-MGM Studios and various non-residential sites in Arkansas, including the Little Rock Zoo - Brief Article

Nation's Business, Dec, 1996 by Michael Barrier

With Christmas close at hand, it seems an appropriate time to bring you up to date on the activities of Jennings Osborne. He is, you may recall, the Little Rock, Ark., businessman who decorated his home (and two adjacent houses that he bought)' with 3 million lights, attracting thousands of gawkers and earning him the wrath of his neighbors and ultimately the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Last year, the court shut down Osborne's display, and he wound up lending his lights to illuminate the "residential street" on the Disney-MGM Studios lot at Walt Disney World in Florida.

This year, Osborne is lighting up Disney's street with more than 3 million lights, up from 1995's 2 million. Beyond that, it appears that Osborne--having been denied the opportunity to light up his own neighborhood--is going to light up a large part of the rest of Arkansas instead. He decorated the Little Rock Zoo and some other local sites last year, and he has been planning even more displays at nonresidential sites this year, in Little Rock and five other Arkansas cities--Hot Springs, Hamburg, Searcy, Magnet Cove, and Helena.

It used to be that when Osborne was decorating his own home, the glow was clearly visible from passing airplanes. With the way things are going, we can envision a day when the whole state of Arkansas is covered in Osborne's lights, except for one clark spot around his house.

Osborne filed for personal bankruptcy last year, in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over back taxes the agency said he owed. In October, he paid all his other creditors everything he owed them, plus interest, as he had promised he would once he got judicial approval. His dispute with the IRS appears headed for trial, though.

Robert Lowry, Osborne's attorney, says he has won the right to dig into the IRS's own records and question its agents in search of what he believes are its less-than-pure motives for going after Osborne. This case thus promises to be at least as entertaining as any of Osborne's light displays.

One possible collaboration that Osborne was talking about a few months ago won't be coming off after all. The idea was that the Walt Disney Co. and the Coca-Cola Co. would cosponsor a nationwide contest, with the winner to get Osborne's decorating services as the prize--he'd light up the winner's house in time for Christmas.

Now that that idea has been scrapped, we have to wonder: Did someone at Coke or Disney figure out that they might have to provide free legal services along with the lights?