Everett Price’s Menagerie Is Rock-Solid

Everett Price started by repairing a small ceramic duck that once decorated his yard.

He replaced the mallard’s broken noggin with one made of plaster. Now, nine years later, his yard at 10824 S. Kiesling Road is full of sculpted plaster and concrete animals.

Price guesses - conservatively - that he has made 75.

They’re not just ornament-size, either. His newest addition is an 11-foot-long concrete whale that weighs in at 1,100 pounds. He needed a tractor to pull it up the hill from from his shop to where it now sits.

What would drive him to do it?

“I always enjoyed animals,” says Price, 79. “When I was little, I liked Tarzan shows and always liked to go to the zoo.”

Now, he can go whenever he wants. He labels this acre of animals near Valleyford a “children’s zoo.” It is jam-packed with concrete critters. The wood-chip trail that cuts through his menagerie brings viewers to the likes of miniature dinosaurs, a life-size mountain gorilla and an 8-foot giraffe. He has wolves, a cougar, a skunk, and penguins.

For Price, a retired building contractor, making things comes naturally. He starts off by shaping galvanized steel into a frame. “I don’t use a blow torch, though,” he says. “My eyes aren’t so good anymore.” He uses metal he can bend by hand.

Then he pours the concrete over it. Lastly, he finishes the sculpture with weather-resistant paint.

He uses pictures from books and magazines as subjects. Other times, he gets his inspiration first-hand.

Six years ago he and his wife, Lois, took a trip to the Cayman Islands. There, they saw giant sea turtles. Price went home and fashioned one himself.

On another trip, he saw alligators in the Amazon. You guessed it, there’s now an 8-foot ‘gator in his yard.

Some folks drop by unannounced to see Price’s creations, and that’s fine with him. Other times, school or YMCA groups call ahead.

When a group of 13 preschoolers from the YMCA recently came to visit, a beaming Price brought them animal cookies.

“Don’t touch! Look with your eyes,” the tykes’ teacher says.

Good luck. The pack instantly dispersed every which way, reaching for everything. “Grrrr!” said a brown-haired boy to a towering brown bear. Another boy, seeing Price’s lion, started to cry.

“He thinks it’s real,” preschool teacher Cathy Wright said as she rescued the boy from the concrete kitty.

At this zoo, some animals are less than welcome. On one occasion, 18 elk trampled through Price’s yard.

“They knocked my eagle down,” Price says, pointing to a bird taking flight, its claws stretched out as if to grasp a mouse. “I said that wasn’t gonna do it.”

So, he built a fence to keep the giant pests at bay. But, for bipeds anyway, the sign in his front yard still reads, “Open - Free.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo