Great Bend City Council members gave their approval this week to a plan to use public property to help advance a design plan that ties in downtown Great Bend with the region’s birding attractions.
The council approved using the lawn around the Great Bend Library for bronze statues that will include a bird design, according to Beautification Committee Chairwoman Linda Dougherty.
She told the council that the bronzes, if the fund raising is successful, would include “a sculpture of a birdhouse on a pole” near the proposed statue of a young girl, holding her hand up with a bird resting on it. “The bronze is a statue of a small girl with a bird taking flight off her hand,” according to information provided to the council. “The committee feels that this bronze would add to the beauty of Great Bend, while embracing the ... theme of bird habitats.”
The was referencing a meeting the Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau had with the council earlier this year, during which
Director Cris Collier outlined “Migration,” the local effort to encourage the development of bird houses and feeders in the downtown area, as well as elsewhere in the community.
That effort is intended to help tie the community to the Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway.
Great Bend is fortunate to be the largest byway community and we offer the most visitor amenities. Adopting ‘Migration’ as a marketing concept to tie Great Bend to its byway theme of ‘Birds & Wildlife’ offers exceptional opportunities to promote and enhance this community. The ‘Great Bend Migration’ concept will draw visitors through Great Bend in all directions. Every interested business, attraction and organization will be able to adopt some part of the concept and be included in the initiative,” Collier explained to the council.
One of the efforts that Collier is encouraging is a “development of the north end of the Jack Kilby Square as a song bird habitat with bird feeding stations.”