LCL mascots adorn MdCV gymnasium
October 05, 2006
High on the west wall of the school’s main
gymnasium are plaques representing schools and mascots of the Lyon
County League. These were made during the summer of 2005 by Linda
Lawhorn, the At-Risk and Virtual Prescriptive Learning (VPL)
facilitator for Marais des Cygnes Valley High School.
According to Lawhorn, Steve Burkdoll had seen pennants or smaller
LCL replicas at other schools, and after consulting with Thad
Thurston on the idea, they decided they also wanted something
similar, but they wanted theirs to be much bigger.
After manipulating some computer graphics, Lawhorn presented
Burkdoll and Thurston with several different options to consider.
“I gave them some different shapes and sizes to choose from,” she
said, “and the final concept was what Mr. B and Mr. Thurston
picked.” With the added assistance of the school maintenance
director Bob Harred, Lawhorn made the plaques in the shop building
over the summer. She said, “It took about a month to complete. Bob
helped me cut them out, and then I laid out the design with the aid
of a computer.”
The actual design, Lawhorn explained, was completed in two steps. The wording was accomplished from her own artwork, and then the mascot image was transferred with the use of an opaque projector. “I did that part of the project in the east classroom, by putting towels all over the windows, which really freaked out Mr. Thurston and the boys who were doing weight-lifting. They came in there, and it was all dark and scary, and they didn’t know why it was like that,” she added, softly laughing.
Using sign paint, Lawhorn said the process took quite a while to do because the siding had a molded wood grain texture on it, which gives it a different look than just plain masonite. After completing all nine plaques, Harred was faced with the quandry of how to mount them on the wall. “Mr. B wanted them positioned in an arch shape, but the placement of metal studs within the wall itself dictated the final arrangement in pyramid-style height, in order to hold them all,” explained Lawhorn.
Other representations of Lawhorn’s artwork may be seen in and around Melvern or the county. Examples include the Red Goose Shoes logo on the side of a downtown building, the sunflowers on a park mural, and a billboard promotion of Osage County along Interstate 35. She also is a volunteer at the Mayes House on Tuesday nights, where she teaches art to the residents. The subjects of her lessons have included leaf rubbings, stamping, salt doping, butterflies, and even wooden birdhouse projects during the summer. She also says she tries to use different art mediums, such as acrylic or watercolor paint. She has even worked on a series of pencil portraits of her husband and his band members.
Art and design tend to run in the Lawhorn family. Her husband Jack works in the design department at Westar. Her son Joe is writing a book, but he also edits and publishes on a small scale, and her daughter Jennifer is majoring in Journalism at Johnson County Community College. All are graduates and alumni of the Marais des Cygnes School district.
