Brad Neznik of Moorhead has built more than 550 9-foot lighted candy canes to brighten holiday spirits. Photos/Nancy Hanson
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Neighborhoods across the metro area are showing their Christmas colors in the sweetest way, thanks to a Moorhead man and a pastime that’s turned into something of a holiday business.
“I made one candy cane for a neighbor when we first moved to Moorhead in 2014,” Brad Neznik explains. “We had one in our yard that we’d brought along when we moved here from Hutchinson, Minnesota. I hadn’t made it myself – a neighbor there had made it for our kids – but I figured I could do it, too.”
That first 9½ -foot lighted candy cane caused something of a sensation in the Nezniks’ neighborhood on 2½ Street South. Another asked, and then another. “Their spread was totally organic. One person would get a cane, and then someone else would ask,” the Cane Man reports. “It’s turned into a way to build community, one cane at a time.”
The iconic canes spread by word of mouth. People asked their own neighbors on social media. Some knocked on front doors to track them down. In 2015, Brad built 16 canes out of PVC pipe, 36 feet of red and white Christmas lights, and yards and yards of poly tape. The next year called for 47 around his neighborhood south of 40th Avenue South. Then a woman from Rivershore Drive put together a flyer and stuck it in her neighbors’ doors; she came to Brad with an order for 35.
As people slowly figured out where the candy canes came from, it grew. “In 2017, it just exploded,” he reports. He got 144 orders that year and had to borrow his neighbor’s pickup to haul supplies from Menard’s. After 92 in 2018, 72 last year and 52 so far in 2020, the decorations have become something of a citywide staple.
What started as a favor for a neighbor has grown into almost a second full-time occupation. A special education teacher in the Moorhead school system by day, he gets home around 4. “I spend a couple of hours with my wife and kids,” he says. (He and Jennifer have three – a 9th grader, a 7th grader and the littlest in kindergarten.) “Then I head out to make canes in the garage until 2 or 3 in the morning.”
Though he has created and installed some 550 candy canes on streets in the metro area and outlying towns, Brad fervently resists the temptation to make his pastime a business. “They’re not about money,” he says. “Whether it’s 100 canes of one cane in a new area, whether it’s a gift for a neighbor in need of good cheer or a surprise to someone in the family or just a finishing touch to a neighborhood display, the holiday spirit is strong in our community. These canes are a part of it.” He says the reaction of customers is part of his reward: “The stories I hear are just great.”
He’s at the end of his cane-building now, largely because local stores are out of holiday lights. “People are hitting them hard,” he says. “I’ve pretty much cleaned out what’s left in all the Menard’s stores around the area.” Those who lean toward adding one to their own displays can phone or message him at (320) 766-2158 to be added to his wish list for next year.
In the meantime, Brad’s handiwork is helped make much of the Fargo-Moorhead metro area brighter. For the brightest displays, he suggests the 170 or so in Fargo, many of them along 21st Street South south of Southpointe Clinic or, in Moorhead – where 328 are shining brightly – along Rivershore Drive, 2nd, 2½, 3rd and 4th Streets South and 6th Street near Hampton Ave.
