Blog Post #1, The Wildcat Statue.

                                                The Wildcat Statue

                      
Link: http://kykernel.com/2012/04/03/wildcat-statue-installed-across-from-memorial-coliseum/

        The wildcat statue is placed across the street from Memorial Coliseum, located on Avenue of Champions. I had already seen the wildcat statue while I was attending band camp the week before school had started. I didn't fully become interested in the statue until we had gotten sent out for WRD to take a look at the statue. I decided that I would take a further look into the statue. I looked on Google for any articles that had been written about the recently new statue. I found an article from the schools newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel, about the statue right around the time that it was being installed.

         The article talks about where the statue was being placed. Which as I had said across from Memorial Coliseum. The article then mentions who had sculpted the statue, Matthew Gray Palmer. He also had done several other wildcat/bobcat statues for other colleges. The Leadership Summit and the Emerging Leader Institute were the ones who had actually had the idea for the statue. They wanted it to be put up so that current "students and alumni can identify with" it. Another point that they had made at the end of the article was the cost of the statue and that there would be brick pavers placed around the wildcat. The brick pavers can be purchased on the Alumni Association website. All the proceeds from the bought brick pavers, that can be purchased by current students, alumni and friends, was supposed to go toward the project but they decided that the proceeds should go to the scholarships that the Alumni Association offers to students.

            Questions that this article answered for me was why had they put the statue there, how did you get your name on one of the brick pavers and can just anyone buy one of the bricks. However this article did raise a few more questions. How much do one of the brick pavers cost? Why exactly did they choose that venue? Was it because its on Avenue of Champions? Or is it because that its across from Memorial Coliseum? What are the other random stones for that surround the wildcat statue? What was the importance of having the wildcat statue on a log instead of a rock?