The Walk to School Day, on Wednesday October 1 this year, will have a special feature. Project chairman Dr. Jim Goetz has introduced a trophy to be awarded annually to the Brockport elementary school which has the greatest percentage of walkers. It is the ninth year for the event sponsored by Walk! Bike! Brockport! which promotes the health and environmental benefits of students walking to school instead of using the school bus or the family car.
With his typical community spirit as the event organizer, Dr. Goetz asked two local artists to apply their talents in creating a one-of-a-kind trophy. Jennifer Hecker in the Department of Art at The College at Brockport has created the cast bronze figures on the trophy. Ed Lehman, well known locally for his wood craftsmanship, has created the walnut base of the trophy. He is a retired professor of sociology at the College.
To plan the trophy the two artists met with Goetz at breakfast three times over several months. The challenge was to coordinate the shape and size of the base to accommodate the sculpture and the metal name plates. Details evolved with each meeting. The resulting trophy features delightful cast bronze stick figures of two walking children on top of a handsome wood base.
Hecker’s concept “came from thinking the walk to school is good for you as well as for the environment, reducing your carbon footprint,” she said. “My thought was to make walking students out of things you might find along the way as you walk to school – things from nature – pine cones, nuts, and sticks. To make them look like kids I gave them back packs and sneakers.”
Lehman’s approach for the base started with hands-on methods. He brought scraps of wood to sample at the first meeting. At the next breakfast he brought a rough shape of the base made from scrap wood. With that prototype in the second meeting he discussed with Hecker the space she would need for her sculpture. Besides those dimensions, “We left the meeting with specific dimensions for the base panels, how many name plates on a side, and the main front panel to name the event and the current year’s winner,” Lehman said. “The discussions at breakfast were crucial to coming up with a shape of the base that would work,” he added. By the third meeting the trophy was complete.
Jennifer Hecker is a professor in the Department of Art where she has taught all levels of sculpture as well as general education courses since 1989. In 1999, she was awarded a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2002 she completed a six-year term as department chairperson. A Brockport resident for over 25 years, she is known in the community for her house-shaped steel sculpture, “Reasons and Roots,” created in Remembrance Park on Park Avenue in 2006.
Ed Lehman started wood-turning as a hobby in the mid-1980s. He is well-known locally for his finely crafted bowls, platters, vases, candle sticks and other wood creations. “The community has been very receptive,” he said about his work that is often commissioned for items such as wedding gifts.
Lehman, with a PhD in sociology, retired as Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus from The College at Brockport in 1996 after 26 years. He taught research methods. His own research was pioneering work in the study of women clergy. Beginning in 1975, Lehman conducted research in the United States as well as England and Australia on the role of women clergy and lay reactions to their ministry.
Dr. Goetz expressed his gratitude to Hecker and Lehman for making his trophy concept a reality. “These college and community artists came together to donate their time and considerable talent,” he said. “Their combined creative genius resulted in a beautiful trophy.”
