By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Last year, the City of Stafford applied for two grants through the South Central Community Foundation. A $2,000 grant went toward redoing the kitchen at the VFW. A $200 grant was awarded to the city to paint a mural on the local lumberyard along Main Street.
Understanding $200 was not going to be enough funding to hire an artist, Stafford Office Clerk Deana Eisenhour stepped up to paint the mural.
"We found this quilt-type pattern," said Eisenhour. "We liked the fact that it was red, white and blue. Our school colors are red and black, so it all meshed together really well. We spent a lot of hours looking through pictures, trying to figure out what we wanted to put on it. We made it applicable to the city. Some history people didn't even know...like our longitude and latitude and our elevation."
The 9' x 9' mural welcomes citizens as they enter Stafford’s business district from the south. Working on the project a few hours before and after work, Eisenhour estimated more than 40 hours went into the mural.
Able to honor her brother with the mural, Eisenhour mentioned the project was a labor of love.
"My brother was the chief of police in Stafford for 29 years, and he passed five years ago," said Eisenhour. "He was a police officer, firefighter and EMT. If you look on the corner, I have it in memory of my brother, Doug Brown."
The City of Stafford also funded a grant to have a professional artist to paint an image on a different wall of the same lumberyard building.