Cowboy Museum unveils John Wayne statue

I am glad you put this here Kevin. I was pleased to see Edward J. Fraughton is the sculptor of Duke's statue. I have talked with him personally about one of his pieces that he did years ago on my friend Rhett's ggg-grandfather, Truman O. Angell. Fraughton is a very nice man and extremely in demand. I have no doubt what he did of Duke is top rate...

Hoping to find a photo of the statue, the Mrs. and I spent the past 45 minutes or so searching the Internet, and could find nothing except the same AP article.
If anyone has found one, please post it.

Well, well, well . . . just on a hunch, 4 minutes after posting this, I decided to check YouTube, and lo and behold, guess what I found?

[extendedmedia]

Not the unveiling, but gives you a taste at least.

Chester

I saw the notice of this in the newspaper yesterday. Looks like an appropriate tribute.
Cheers - Jay

Hey brick, did you happen to make it over there?

Sorry I couldn't, just too much going on. If you got any picks, we'd sure appreciate seeing them.

Well we have the foot now heres the head!! Hopefully a video of the wholw thing will turn up.

Mike


John Wayne statue unveiled

Sun July 29, 2007 Museum unveils ‘Duke' tribute
Related Information

This John Wayne sculpture by Edward J. Fraughton was unveiled Saturday during a ceremony at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Saturday was the National Day of the American Cowboy. By Jaconna Aguirre, the Oklahoman

By Heather Warlick
Staff Writer

John Wayne was perhaps the most iconic and well-loved of all silver screen cowboys, and Saturday, on National Day of the American Cowboy, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum unveiled a larger-than-life tribute to "The Duke” — a bronze statue of him standing 8 feet 8 inches tall.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Wayne's birth.
The sculpture portrays Wayne in classic western garb with cowboy boots, spurs, chaps and a hat, holding a rifle in his left hand and wearing a gunbelt and holster. Sculptor Edward J. Fraughton said he tried to represent Wayne as an icon from the middle years of his career.
"All of us who are here have a different picture in our mind of who John Wayne was, what he represents to America,” Fraughton said. "When I was asked to create this image of John Wayne in sculpture, I was overwhelmed. I thought we ought to portray him in a real epic form rather than as an individual in a particular film.”
Grandchildren take part
Two of Wayne's grandchildren, Anita LaCava Swift and Nick Kuhle, flew to Oklahoma City from California to participate in the unveiling.
"It's always an amazing thing for our family whenever we get to be out among his fans because he's almost been dead for 30 years, but there are 3-year-old children who come up to me and tell me how much they love him,” Swift said.
"It's really special to me especially to have all these people out here,” Kuhle said. "It's just wonderful. Unfortunately, he died before I was born, but I've just heard so many stories and so many great things about him; it's just special to me to have something like this happen. It's just incredible. It was great to have an icon like that as your grandfather.”
Wayne was an active leader of the museum and served as a member of the Board of Trustees from 1965, when the museum opened, until his death in 1979.
He was the first recipient of the Wrangler Award for a major motion picture for " The Alamo” at the museum's inaugural Western Heritage Awards program.
‘He believed ...'
"He believed in what this place could be about, and he invested himself in it. ... He was here for our groundbreaking, here for many of our early events, bringing this place out of the ground because he believed in the message we were going to deliver here,” said Chuck Schroeder, the museum's executive director.
Also in attendance Saturday were veteran Western actor and stuntman Dean Smith; Jesse Mullins, editor of "American Cowboy” magazine and state Rep. Wade Rousselot, D-Wagoner.
More than 1,000 people watched as the statue was unveiled. It was commissioned by the museum and purchased with support from Kerr-McGee Corp.
"The story of the cowboy is not just the story of people who make their living with saddle and rope and bridle reins; it's the story of character,” Schroeder said.
"Traits like courage and perseverance and integrity, the spirit of adventure, great dreams to instill the romantic notion that there's power in good. John Wayne embodied those ideals, and he attached them to the world's view of America and of Americans. He did that across generations, and heaven knows we still need a hero like ‘The Duke.'”