Former Students Create Prehistoric
Impressions in Park Sidewalk
Wichita Eagle -July 9, 2004
'OCEANS OF KANSAS' IN GROVE PARK
SARAH DERREBERRY, THE WICHITA EAGLE
Northeast Magnet High School graduate Brian Unruh,
left, helps art teacher Tina Murano lift a mold of a
mosasaur's head off a sidewalk at Grove Park. When
the project is finished, the park will have a new
road, bike path, football field and wildflower meadow.
Thursday morning, local art students made sure a 300 million-year-old dinosaur will leave a lasting impression
with kids at Grove Park.
Northeast Magnet High School graduates Pedro Ibarra, Brian Unruh and Bryan Rapp, and their former art
teacher, Tina Murano, created shallow impressions of a mosasaur's skeleton in a newly poured sidewalk.
The project, called "The Oceans of Kansas," will be part of a Kansas-themed play area to be built as part of an
improvement plan that was put into action in 2002 for the park, at 27th Street North and Hillside. The plan
includes a new road, bike path, football field and wildflower meadow.
The playground will have a bison, a silo and other prairie-themed play structures.
The 28-foot, narrow-headed mosasaur was joined by impressions of ancient clams, shells and ferns. Students cut
foam insulation, attached it to cardboard and pressed the mold into newly poured cement to create the
impressions.
Glen Dey is leader of the Grove Park Coalition, a group of residents who have pushed for the park improvements.
Depending on the coalition's fund-raising efforts, Dey said, the playground could be finished by fall or sometime
next year.
Murano said her former students researched prehistoric animals and plants native to Kansas to make sure their
art project fit the playground theme.
"They gathered all this different information about creatures that lived in the place we call Kansas now," Murano
said. "It was great to see the students doing this art project, learning all these scientific terms and getting a
different idea of time, how short their life really is compared with 300 million years ago."
Dey was the one to first approach the students.
"I thought, if we could involve students in creating some artwork, as a part of it," he said, "then they begin to get
feelings about the fact that it is their park as well, and that youth throughout the area can have some kind of
ownership."
Ibarra's impression of the park changed during his involvement in the project."For the most part, it's not like the
park has the best reputation," he said. "But I think it's pretty cool they're going to clean it up and do this for the
kids in the community and give it a good reputation."Ibarra risked being late to work to help his friends make the
impressions.
"Should I put this little one here?" Rapp asked, holding a small shell mold.
"You don't want it too cluttered," Unruh said from the opposite side of the wet concrete. "Maybe over here."
Unruh laid the shell mold on top of the concrete and pressed hard with his palms. Within hours the impression
would be set, providing a reminder of the ocean waves that once covered what are now Kansas' rolling prairies.