A fourth stone is coming to the vaunted Golden Belt Veterans Memorial and two languishing Biblical murals at Hillcrest Cemetery will see restoration.
Bids to make the improvements at the county-owned Golden Belt Memorial Park and Hillcrest, both located north of Great Bend, were the topics of a Barton County Commission study session Wednesday morning. No final action was taken, but both projects are on the commission agenda for this coming Wednesday morning.
County Works Director Darren Williams and Mick Lang, Bridge Department employee and Memorial Parks Committee member, presented the proposals.
Stone number four
As for the stone, “we ended up getting one bid,” Lang said. That was from Great Bend sculpture Chet Cale for $28,837.
“He didn’t raise the price,” Lang said. Cale has worked on this project since its inception, and has provided the previous three stones as well.
“I am so happy he was the only one because he was concerned that he wouldn’t get this,” said District 5 Commissioner Jennifer Schartz. “He has put his heart soul into this.”
Cale has worked with Diana Watson, administrative assistant in the Operations Department, and the company that provides the granite slabs. “It’s very streamlined how they can get it all done,” she said.
He was already ordering the stone to assure that it matched the other three. “He was just afraid from an aesthetic point of view that if his bid hadn’t been accepted that those stones would have looked different.”
The proposal calls for 75%, $21,627.75, be paid up front, Lang said. The balance of $7,209.25 is due upon installation.
“He was hoping to get it done by Memorial Day,” Williams said. “But, that’s probably not going to be possible” because there are loose ends out of his control.
So, realistically, they are shooting for Veterans Day, Williams said.
The cost of the stone is offset by the purchase of lines featuring the names of veterans with county connections.
The murals
The two murals bracket the A and C sections of Hillcrest. “The Last Supper” is on the west side facing east and “The Lord is My Shepherd” is on the east facing west.
Both are carved marble reliefs that have been painted. However, those paints have faded and worn away, Lang said.
“We did end up getting two local bids,” Lang said.
The first was from Great Bend artist Melanie Ryan. For $4,300 she would clean, prep and restore the monuments to their original condition, and for $5,300 she would do a full-color restoration of the “Supper” including areas that were not colored originally.
The second bid was from Cale who would clean, prep and paint all previously painted surfaces in similar color, returning it to its original state. His price was $6,769.
Barring any delays in getting materials, Cale’s proposal said the work would be done by September or earlier. The paint is designed to last for decades.
Ryan’s alternate bid was more extensive than what Cale offered. But, commissioners wanted to know what paint Ryan was going to use and if it had the same life expectance as that used by Cale.
“Are we comparing apples to apples,” said District 1 Commissioner Kirby Krier. The commission may ask Ryan and Cale to attend the meeting Wednesday, or at very least, what type of paint they are planning on using.
“I’m just going to throw this out some background information,” Schartz said. “It might seem a little odd that the county is putting taxpayer money into refurbishing a religious statues or monuments.”
They couldn’t put up a new statue because of the separation of church and state. But when the county took ownership, they were obligated to maintain them, she said.
Barton county took over the memorial parks in 1996 following a bankruptcy. At that time, there were is a state unkempt and deteriorating.
Care of the facilities falls to the Road and Bridge Department. “These guys do a tremendous job,” Krier said.
In a related matter, there is a monument at Golden Belt that has deteriorated beyond repair and a statue of Christ with a missing hand. It was the consensus to have county crews remove the monument, salvaging what they could, and plan on restoring the statue in the future.
Golden Belt Memorial Park and Hillcrest Cemetery are located on NW 50 Road.
