Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990 TAG: 9004120550
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEXINGTON - LENGTH: Medium
Old George is coming down Tuesday after adorning the administration building's bell tower for 146 years. It will be displayed in more comfortable and protected surroundings elsewhere on campus once he is restored, university officials said Wednesday.
"We were getting concerned about Old George's well-being," said James W. Whitehead, director of the Reeves Center and coordinator of the project.
New George will be made of bronze. He will be molded from a cast of the wooden model, painted white to replicate the original and placed on the bell tower in about a year. At 130 feet, one of the highest points in the city, he'll have a majestic view of the southern Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Mathew Kahle, a Lexington cabinetmaker, carved the 8-foot, 700-pound statue from a poplar log he found floating in the Maury River outside town. It was his only work of art and he charged $100. The bronze reproduction will cost about $100,000 and be paid for through private donations, said university spokesman Brian Shaw.
Kahle's statue depicts the president in a neo-classical pose, dressed in a toga with a sword in one hand and a diploma in the other.
Pamela Simpson, professor of art history at Washington and Lee, called the statue "a marvelous example of folk art."
"I can't think of another piece of folk art on the scale of this on a public building," she said. "I don't think there is anything else that compares to it in the country."
Old George "may not be a Michelangelo creation," wrote Henry Boley in his book "Lexington of Old Virginia," "but in the sentiment and affections of W&L students, it means more than the Winged Victory of the Venus de Milo."
To the termites and woodpeckers, though, Old George was just a good meal. Woodpeckers probing his soft wood for the insects bored holes on Old George's bottom and took up residence at one point.
A temporary wooden screen was erected around the statue until he could be patched up.
For years, members of the crew clubs at Washington and Lee would alternate painting the statue red and blue in the week leading up to their annual race in the late 1800s.
It also was customary for freshmen to scale Washington Hall to paint Old George on the day freshmen rules were lifted. And cadets from neighboring Virginia Military Institute liked to sneak over and coat Old George in the yellow and red colors of their school.
Workers said there was about an inch of paint on the statue when they restored it in the 1930s and again in the 1960s.
Ironically, the students were doing Old George more good than harm.
"All that paint helped preserve him," Shaw said.
"I'm glad to see it's going to be cared for," Simpson said. "But we'll sure be sad to see it go."
by CNB