New sculpture in Edna

By Michael Brooks

Staff Writer

    The Edna High School class of 1968 presented their hometown with a large bronze Cowboy sculpture that is already catching lots of eyes. On Wednesday, Aug. 3, the sculpture was lifted and placed on a stand at 816 N. Wells, on the side of Interstate 59. Two days later a Cowboy Pride Dedication was held at the same place.

    Patt Schiewitz and Douglas Clark, both class of ‘68, came together and figured out the idea for the sculpture.

    “Patt was our Class President, and after our 50th reunion, he and I started talking about making a sculpture,” Clark said.

    Clark is the owner of Douglas Clark Art in Edinburg. The website douglasclarkart.com has many examples of his amazing work and lists him as an “internationally acclaimed artist.” With Clark being an Edna native, he was able to put a lot of personal pride into the sculpture and what he made is spectacular.

    “Patt offered to pay for a lot of the materials if I would build the sculpture,” Clark continued. “He wanted a much smaller size and I wanted it larger. In sculptures, when you place it outdoors, they visually look smaller than they really are. If you want to make a sculpture of a person that looks life-sized, he needs to be eight feet tall when you put him outside. This one needed to be more than one-and-a-half the size, so this one is two-and-a half life-size and it will show up a lot better than a smaller one would.”

    As with most new things that are new and attention-grabbing, exaggerated words of the sculpture’s size started making the rounds.

    “Word has gotten out this is 39 feet tall, but it is not,” Schiewitz explained. “It is 16 feet tall with a six foot base. It is also two-and-a-half tons, not five tons like people are saying.”

    So how did Schiewitz and Clark come up with the idea?

    “John Summer, our principal is really the one that came up with the idea,” Schiewitz said. “Not the idea of the sculpture though. He told us to do something for the city that people will be proud of and will remember. It was his motivation from years ago that prompted us to do this. He probably thought we forgot about it. We wanted to give back to the community so we thought, why not do something like this.”

    After the two men came up with what they wanted to present the City, Clark started working on, between other projects.

    “I fiddled around with it for about three years,” Clark explained. “It should have taken less than one but I had some setbacks.”

    Clark was formally a professor in sculpture at the University of Texas but retired and is now doing sculptures full time. With a project of this magnitude, Clark had to do a little extra work on the side.

    At the Cowboy Pride Dedication, Adysen Malek sang, the Edna High School Cowboy band played, and members of the community spoke about the sculpture, honoring Joe Hermes “for his numerous hours and years worked toward the betterment of the community he loves,” the pamphlet said.

    If you have yet to see the sculpture, when you are heading out on Hwy 111 or on the overpass at 59 and 111, you will see the sculpture standing tall, a symbol of pride for all Edna Cowboys past, present, and future.