By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
First opened in 1964, the Geneseo City Museum, offers a good history of the small town in northern Rice County. The museum also helped get Geneseo the official title of UFO Capital of Kansas. Founder Dr. E.D. Janzen enjoyed researching flying-saucer sightings and aliens.
B&B Metal Arts in Hoisington, just over 30 miles to the west of Geneseo on K-4 Highway, will help in the UFO fascination by creating a sculpture of Gort, the fictional robot that appeared in the 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Bruce Bitter, with B&B Metal Arts, said the connection to create this 8' tall sculpture started decades ago when his business first started.
"The mercantile in Ellsworth, Jim Gray was running it," said Bitter. "We went in there with our metal art, and Gray just loved it. He asked if we could make an old, rusty, longhorn cow. So we made it and that was big hit. Gray has always thought a lot of us throughout the years, and 30 years later this came up and he knew exactly who to give a call."
The Geneseo City Museum received a Kansas Department of Commerce grant to help fund the sculpture. The robot will be dedicated during the third annual Kansas UFO Day at the museum on July 6.
"When I tell people what I'm doing, they just smile," said Bitter. "I don't know what that smile means...if it's kind of cute, are you serious or go right on ahead. In the past, I started off cutting flat silhouettes and then we added color. We've done three dimensional sculptures, but this a three-dimensional, exact duplicate of Gort."
Along with the statue dedication, Kansas UFO Day will include paranormal
speakers, vendors, spacecraft displays, kids games, UFO watch and an outdoor
movie.
Visit the Geneseo City Museum Facebook page for more details on Kansas UFO Day events.