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10-13-2002 - 11:47 a.m.
To the Stars In keeping with our theme of giant statues of men, last week a new bronze sculpture of a Kanza Indian was installed on the dome of the Kansas Capitol Building in Topeka�and only 12 years after the proposed deadline and hundreds of thousands of dollars later.
 The name of the sculpture is Ad Astra which means �to the stars� and it features a 22ft, bronze loin-clothed Indian pointing his bow and arrow toward the North Star. Now I am in favor of half dressed Indians, maybe even more than the average Kansan, but you can�t imagine the controversy this has caused. Originally, back in 1903 the good people of Kansas thought a statue of Ceres, the Goddess of Agriculture might be nice, but she was a Roman Goddess, therefore a Pagan with questionable morals�I mean, after all, she had to be a fertility Goddess, right? Well, that wouldn�t do. How about a pioneer or a pioneer mother? Or Dorothy and Toto? Eventually, they let the school children decide and they wanted an Indian. And a sculptor from Salina, Richard Bergen was commissioned 
That was 14 years ago Problem was, the completed giant Indian weighed 4,000 lbs and there was no way that the dome of the capitol was going to be able to support that weight . Like most states, Kansas has been having a lot of financial problems. The governor, Bill Graves has had to do some pretty radical budget slashing in the last few years, especially to the schools, but for some reason, he LOVED this Indian. As a lame duck governor, Graves authorized nearly a million dollars to reinforce the dome and get our Indian friend installed. In the meantime, for the past 14 years, the completed statue has been on the back of a flatbed truck and hauled around to every county fair, church picnic and cock fight for the people to see and so they could contribute money to the cause. The two candidates running for governor have been harshly critical of the current governor, both claiming that Kansas would never spend this kind of money on �yard art� on their watch. But as of Thursday, the Indian is in place. Let�s hope he doesn�t get hit by lightening
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