MILLARD, Neb. (KMTV) — When driving by Millard's Buell Stadium, there’s a new addition to the back of the scoreboard you can’t miss.
That addition being the ‘The Triumph of Youth’ mural.
“This is Millard. You can't find this any place else,” MPS Superintendent Jim Sutfin said. “This is ours.”
“Buell Stadium is like the front door of our district, and I am so proud of how our house looks,” MPS Board of Education President Linda Poole said.
Monday morning students and members of MPS, along with members of the Millard community, gathered to celebrate the completion of a project that has been in the works for the last couple of years.
“If you’re never going to stop, you’re still going to see something beautiful and it’s fine, but if you stop and you’re curious, it will reveal far more in response to your curiosity,” said mural artist Watie White.
White is the artist behind the masterpiece. He is a local artist that has been a part of three other artistic projects for MPS.
White says what makes these projects so special is the involvement that so many in the community have in it, and gathering all their viewpoints on what has shaped Millard into the community that it is today.
“There’s 50 people who are going to walk away from this, probably more like 100, who feel like they see their handprints in this, they see their ideas in it,” White said. “They see something that they said that was heard and was recorded, and now is recorded for a long, long time.”
That includes the help of current students who not only helped brainstorm how they would tell the story in a single image but are also in the image themselves.
“It’s just really cool because I’m on it, my friends are on it, and it’s going to be here forever,” Millard North student Sammy Ward said. “I just really like it, it’s cool.”
“Each time he was so willing to listen to us and hear what we wanted to say, and really wanted us to be involved. That meant a lot because we are the people of Millard, we are the students, we are Millard graduates,” Millard North student Aiden Lewald said. “This is our district; this is our home.”
It’s a 33 feet wide and 25 feet tall mural telling multiple stories of the community’s past, present, and future.
“When you think that you have seen everything in there you should probably keep looking because there’s plenty more that is intended to not emerge so quickly,” White said.
The project was privately funded by Millard Public Schools Foundation, Penny & Frank Kowol, Addie & Robert Hollingsworth, Nebraska Arts Council, and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
MPS says the mural is the most visible piece of public art in Millard.
