After the centennial concert on October 25, a drone light show, planned by the centennial committee and produced by Drone Studios, was a surprise for attendees. The show featured the bishop’s words “the best diocese in the world,” which he frequently says about the Diocese of Raleigh, where he has served since 2017.

The drone show consisted of 200 drones, said Jeff Stein of Drone Studios, which is based in California. “Each drone can do the full RGB spectrum, so any color you can image,” he said. “Basically every drone acts as a pixel … creating 3D [and 2D] animations to tell the story of the diocese.”

Along with bishop’s words and the numeral 100, other pictures in the sky included a chalice, the logo of Catholic Charities and a motorcoach, or bus, to tell the story of when Raleigh was a mission diocese and the bus was a traveling chapel on wheels that would visit rural areas for Mass in the 1950s.

“The drones … they’re really, really good about following animation files to go to specific GPS coordinates at a very specific time and place and then change colors at a very specific time,” said Seth Clark of Drone Studios. “It’s basically connect-the-dots in the sky.”