Payton Baggett Reporting
news@clarksvillenow.com

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – A local sculpture will soon be revitalized with the help of the hopes and dreams of local students.

The project began when Montgomery Central High School Art Teacher Mike Andrews, a member of the board of the Clarksville Public Art Commission, heard that the sculpture was being moved from its original location, and could potentially be scrapped.

The piece was displayed in front of Orgain Building Supply for decades after it had been recovered from the old building that burned down in 1978. It was made from a metal lumber rack that the business had decided to turn into art.

Not wanting the sculpture to be lost, Andrews asked Orgain to donate it to the city, and the company agreed. He decided to use the piece in a unit on public art that his students were completing at the time. The class painted it as part of an assignment, and they also had the idea to ask high school students from around the county to write their post-graduation aspirations on scraps of paper to be put in the base of the sculpture “as a symbol to hold on to one’s dreams.”

“We wanted to find some way to get more students involved,” Andrews said.

Unfortunately, a new meaning was added to the piece when one of the students who worked on the project, Taryn Culpepper, 17, was killed in a single-car crash on December 16 of last year, along with Zachary Fagan, 17, also of MCHS.

“It was an incredibly emotional time,” Andrews said. “We heard about the accident that morning. The whole school got together and we had a moment where the kids just talked about what happened.”

After the assembly, Andrews’ class unanimously told him that they wanted to make the repurposed sculpture into a monument for all of the students that have been lost over the years.

Andrews had the dedication approved by the local Designations Committee, and it will soon be voted on by the Clarksville City Council. Money to complete the base of the sculpture has been donated by the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts and the Clarksville Arts & Heritage Development Council. Andrews expects the piece to be publicly installed by May at Upland Trail Park in downtown, if all goes according to plan.

“It’s going to be a place where people can go and meditate or think about those young lives that they have lost.”

As for the collaborative aspect of the sculpture, the deadline for students to submit their wishes is Friday, March 27. Any wish, whether it is something creative, silly, simple, complex, or deeply personal, is acceptable. “I don’t envision them ever being read…they will not be judged or questioned.”

The letters should be sealed, and teachers can collect and send them via courier to Anthony Johnson, Related Arts CCT, at Central Office.

For questions, contact Anthony Johnson at anthony.johnson@cmcss.net or Mike Andrews at mike.andrews@cmcss.net.