The Keeper statue stolen from Planeview Park has been recovered, is likely not repairable
UPDATED
The Keeper statue that was taken from Wichita’s Planeview Park by vandals over the weekend has been found and returned to Together Wichita, the group that initiated the Keeper 150 project.
But it’s so badly damaged that it’s not likely repairable, they said on Tuesday.
On Monday, a resident spotted the missing statue in the grass beside a creek that runs by Colvin Elementary School, said Tessa Brungardt, who manages the Keeper project for Together Wichita. That resident called Brungardt, who alerted the city of Wichita. Its maintenance workers retrieved the statue on Monday evening.
The creek is not far from Planeview Park, 2819 Fees St.
The city returned the Keeper to Together Wichita early Tuesday afternoon, and project managers got a first look at the damage. It appears that vandals took a power saw to the statue, slicing it at the base of the arms, in the midsection and near the bottom. They weren’t able to cut all the way through, though.
Over the weekend, the statue — one of 13 Keeper of the Plains mini-replicas, each painted by different Wichita artists — was pried off its base near the playground at Planeview Park. It happened sometime between Thursday and Saturday morning. The 10-foot-tall, 75-pound fiberglass statue had just been put in place two weeks previous.
The 13 statues were purchased by Together Wichita, a nonprofit made up of businesses that organize and finance projects intended to better the city, and 13 artists were paid $1,000 each to decorate the statues to reflect the neighborhoods in which they’d be placed. The Keepers were a 150th birthday gift to the city of Wichita, organizers said.
Local artist Tereza Zardoz, who grew up in the neighborhood, painted the Keeper that was stolen, collaborating with Jardine Middle School students for the design.
Organizers are still trying to decide what to do next, Brungardt said. They’ve talked to Zardoz, who has expressed willingness to paint another statue, but they want to pay her and will need to come up with the money.
If they do get another statue for the neighborhood, she said, it might be placed in a more visible spot, possibly close to Jardine, where students can enjoy it as they pass by.
The Planeview statue is not the only one of the Keeper 150 statues that was vandalized. The Keeper just placed at Fairmount Park, 1647 N. Yale, was tagged with graffiti shortly after it was put up. The statues have a clear coating on them that makes removing graffiti easier, and that statue was quickly restored, Brungardt said.
The Fairmount Park statue, designed by artist Ellamonique Baccus, includes parts of the Kansas flag, and the Keeper’s headdress depicts 150 International flags.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 10:51 AM.
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