Vandals strike statue along Centennial Trail

Once cheerfully riding along the Centennial Trail, “Kate” and her two dog companions now lie battered and broken inside a county Parks and Waterways building in Coeur d’Alene.

“Kate,” a statue created by Coeur d’Alene artist David Clemons, was torn from its mounting and dumped on its side last Thursday, severely cracking the artwork and leaving few options for its repair.The vandalism comes on the heels of damage to several “Moose on the Loose” statues and has some artists in town calling the destruction of “Kate” the icing on the cake, said Clemons.

“It’s just discouraging,” he said. “Even if you don’t like the artwork, you have to at least respect the work that goes into it. I just think they’ve never done anything they’ve been proud of.”

Clemons sculpted two statues, nicknamed “Kate” and “Leopold,” in about five months for the North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation. They were created with rebar, concrete and a polyester resin encasement, making them stronger than Michelangelo’s marble statue of “David,” Clemons said.

The ongoing trail improvement project calls for a statue every five miles along the trail and will include a few famous faces, such as John Mullan, Frederick Post and others.

Clemons was chosen for the first two statues on either end of the trail, and both have been vandalized since their installation in April. Leopold, standing at Higgins Point with a camera aimed at the lake, was shot at twice. Clemons has already repaired the statue’s nose.

Clemons and the Centennial Trail Foundation are waiting to see how much it would cost to have “Kate” bronzed at Cier Perdue in Coeur d’Alene. The bid could determine if “Kate” will ever ride the trail again.

“Depending on that price, it may not happen,” Clemons said. “They may say we should just build something else because (“Kate”) will never be weather-worthy or is too expensive to re-create.”

A bronze recreation could take three to four months; installing “Kate” indoors means finding a location and a way to install the statue, he said. Kurtis Robinson, director of Kootenai County Parks and Waterways, works with the Centennial Trail Foundation by coordinating with artists and installing the artwork. He served on the artist selection board and recommended Clemons for the project.

Robinson hopes to see the artwork restored to Stateline Park, even if most viewers see it only while driving past at 70 mph along I-90. But after seeing the damage, he’s also waiting to see if that’s the best thing to do.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do now,” he said. “We experience vandalism with some frequency at all facilities. For the county, it’s the first time we’ve had a statue to contend with.”

Both statues are on remote areas of the trail, making them easy targets for vandalism, he said.

Dave Fair, parks and recreation director for Post Falls, said the city routinely sees varying levels of vandalism, but this was more than just a spray paint offense.

“Somebody willfully destroyed a valuable piece of art,” he said. “There was no point, no logic in it other than just to destroy.”

Fair has been involved in the project since the beginning and applied for the grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The foundation had $20,000 to work with and chose Clemons to create both pieces. However, he said each statue is worth more than $15,000.

The foundation now faces the challenge of seeking out donations and raising money for future artwork with the ongoing threat of vandalism.

“People are going to be more leery about donating money,” Fair said. “But that’s going to be the big question: How are we going to protect it?”

The Centennial Trail board decided last Thursday to offer a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone vandalizing or defacing anything on the trail, including “Kate.”

Chris Copstead, chairman of the North Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation, hopes the ongoing reward will prove more effective than filing police reports.

“It’s not going to be 100 percent effective, but if you catch an occasional vandal, it’ll pay for itself,” Copstead said.