LAKEPORT — Anyone passing Museum Park on Lakeport”s downtown Main Street can see that two wooden statues in front of the police and firefighter memorial there are sporting a new feature lately? cast-iron bars.
According to police chaplain Father Ted Oswald, it”s for their own good. “I saw a kid two years old sitting on the police officer”s hat, the mother standing on the (granite) ledge with her arm around the policeman and a man standing here taking a picture,” Oswald said motioning to a granite slab facing the statues that bears the names of officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty. “I knew instantly that I had to get help to protect the statues.”
Oswald sits on the Public Safety Officers Memorial Committee, which commissioned the statues two years ago. “The kid was sitting there kicking his legs ? we”re lucky it (the hat) didn”t break off,” Oswald said. “So we had to put them behind bars.”
Two redwood statues stand sentinel in front of the fallen peace officer memorial in Museum Park. The police officer represents the numerous law enforcement agencies in the county, including the Lake County Sheriff”s Office, Lakeport Police Department, Clearlake Police Department and California Highway Patrol. It faces the angled stone slab bearing the names of fallen peace officers who served in Lake County. The other statue is a firefighter and faces the names of its fallen comrades.
Oswald said the statues went up permanently on granite slabs in May for the annual Peace Officers” Memorial Day and Police Week ceremony on May 15. Two photo cell-operated lamp posts were installed around the same time for security. Before that, the statues were taken down every year after the ceremony, Oswald said.
The statues were made in 2005 by renowned wood carver Mark Colp, who owns Wooden Creations on Soda Bay Road. “Obviously they shouldn”t be climbed on because they aren”t bronze,” Colp said.
Colp said he made them out of heart wood, a better quality, and gave them a bronze colored stain. The natural color of redwood varies from tree to tree, Colp said, and he wanted the statues to match. He charged the committee $850 a piece, where he would normally charge $1,700.
Colp said none of the variety of wooden figures that can be seen outside his shop have been vandalized. “The best thing about the county is that people have a great respect for the art around here; we don”t have the problems some bigger cities have. No one has vandalized them (the statues), out of respect, I think, for the subject matter and because they”re pieces of artwork in the park.”
“It would be nice to have no fence but we need it to protect the statues,” Oswald said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com
