Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990 TAG: 9004180100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE SHENANDOAH BUREAU
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
In fact, when it came time to leave his post high atop Washington and Lee University's Washington Hall, the 700-pound statue sort of went to pieces.
"It was just a lost cause," sighed Alabama sculptor Branko Medenica, as workmen gathered up the rubble that once was Old George's feet. "There was no way."
Old George, of course, is a wooden likeness of George Washington - who donated heavily in 1796 to this school once called Liberty Hall Academy, saving it from financial ruin.
The 8-foot statue was carved by local cabinetmaker Mathew Kahle in 1842, who was paid less than $100 for his trouble.
As raw material, Kahle - whose only known artwork was Old George - used a huge pine log he found floating in the Maury River.
A W&L art history professor, Pamela Simpson, has described the statue as "a marvelous example of folk art." It depicts Washington in a toga, holding a sword and a diploma.
At 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, as 200 onlookers snacked on cherry cola and brownies with cherry centers - courtesy of W&L - a 140-foot crane gave Old George a little tug. The nylon bands around his chest and waist grew tight.
"They're doing it!" somebody yelled.
The statue leaned.
"Oooooh!" said the crowd.
The statue soared into the air, trailing broken timbers. Despite the damage, there was applause.
Afterward, when the crane had placed the footless statue in the grass, people approached it slowly, as befitted a fallen idol.
"I think it's about time they got him down. He's pretty rotten," observed Julia Postle, a tourist from England.
Vernon Snyder, W&L class of '49, and his wife were a little less practical. As the statue came down, "She said she was going to cry," Snyder said of his wife. "I told her to go ahead."
"It's very emotional," said Snyder's wife, Mary Jane, as Old George was loaded into the back of a truck.
"I'm worried about his head," she added.
Medenica said the head is held in place with steel plates.
Since it was placed on Washington Hall in 1844, said school officials, Old George has endured burrowing insects, birds, student pranks, countless paintings and a recent nest of small woodpeckers. It has been removed for restoration once before, in 1936, and it was repaired on the rooftop in the 1960s.
It has looked over the Lexington landscape on such historic occasions as the funerals of T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson and Robert E. Lee - who for five years was college president - and the shelling by Union troops of Virginia Military Institute, W&L's next-door neighbor.
VMI cadets, in fact, have sometimes succeeded in painting Old George VMI's colors, yellow, red and white.
And sometime before the statue was moved on Tuesday, someone climbed atop Washington Hall and left a VMI cap, a cape and a cardboard sign that read "Must Everything Change?"
But lately, university officials had grown worried about Old George.
"The natural deterioration, damage from birds and insects, and student `attention' over the many years have combined to jeopardize Old George's future," said W&L's James Whitehead, coordinator of the project to restore and replicate the statue.
Removing the statue intact was desirable - both because it is to be used as a mold for the one made of bronze, and because it will be restored and shipped back to W&L itself for a place of honor somewhere else on campus.
But there were signs the removal of Old George might not go smoothly, Medenica said.
When Medenica - who will handle the restoration work - went up on the roof a few weeks ago to look at the statue, he noticed it swayed ominously when touched. And tapping it, he said, revealed hollow spots.
"He was about to fall apart on his own," Medenica said.
The statue lost its base, its feet, and half its right leg in the move, said W&L spokesman Brian Shaw.
Medenica said he will now work partly from photographs to restore the statue, which is to be sent to his studios in Alabama and then on to Florida for the bronze work.
The bronze replica of Old George may not be in place atop Washington Hall for a year or more, said Shaw.
by CNB