Middle school students blaze trails to the
past
 Ten
years after Judi Wollenziehn, now a Missouri NEA-Retired member,
took a job as the library media specialist at Jim Bridger
Eighth Grade Center in Independence, a neighbor stopped by
to chat with her husband as he mowed the lawn.
“Guess you folks know that you’re livin’
on Bridger’s old farm,” the neighbor said.
“My husband rushed into the house to tell me, igniting
a journey that included extensive research, trips to the Old
West, new friendships, deep disappointments and thrilling
victories,” Wollenziehn explains. “The startling
discovery that I lived on the former farm of my school’s
namesake fueled my interest in the mountain man who previously
was of little interest to me.”
That neighborly conversation was the beginning of something
big.
The dedication of a bronze and stone statue by Pleasant Hill
sculptor Tom Beard is the result of two years of student research,
fundraising and community work—just in time for Bridger’s
200th birthday in March 2004. The statue now stands at the
National Frontier Trails Museum in Independence.
“I began researching his life, using books and the
Internet to find information about this man who had walked
on the same ground on which I was walking,” Wollenziehn
says. “As I learned about the intrepid frontiersman
who guided more wagon trains out west than all the other scouts
combined, I began wondering about his descendants. I discovered
that three of his great-grandchildren were still living—one
in Modesto, CA, one in Belle Plaine, KS, and one in Columbus,
KS.”
Wollenziehn joined the Westport Historical Society and learned
that Bridger’s granddaughter, Louise Wachsman Lightle,
was buried in an unmarked grave at Mount St. Mary’s
Cemetery. With the support of her principal, she initiated
a fundraising campaign with Bridger students that allowed
the school to dedicate Lightle’s headstone within a
school year.
A school survey in the fall of 2001 revealed that only a
small fraction of incoming students to the school had any
idea who Jim Bridger was, when he’d lived and what he’d
accomplished.
Five gifted-program students, who dubbed themselves “Jim’s
Angels,” worked on the project the first year. They
brainstormed fundraising ideas; commissioned sculptor Tom
Beard to build a life-size statue of Bridger as a young man;
selected the National Frontier Trails Museum for the statue
site; and presented their plan at an Independence City Council
meeting. They learned how to cut through government red tape
and how to fearlessly request donations. They easily reached
their goal of $8,000—phase one of a three-year plan.
The second group, six students calling themselves the “Bridger
Brigade,” took up the baton and proceeded to raise their
$8,000 portion—phase two of the three-year plan. They
started a letter-writing campaign to various local businesses
and made PowerPoint presentations to historic and philanthropic
groups. The Brigadiers raised $18,000 in one year. They sold
hostas from “Bridger’s Farm,” held garage
sales, invited students to “Adopt a Buffalo,”
wrote letters and held various other fundraisers.
More than 250 people attended the statue’s dedication
ceremony March 14. The students, the sculptor and two of Bridger’s
great grandchildren unveiled the bronze image of the intrepid
scout facing west, right hand raised to shield his eyes from
the sun.
At the ceremony, the sculptor revealed that deep inside the
sculpture’s chest, he had placed a bronze “heart”
with the participating students’ names inscribed upon
it. He told the crowd, “The lives of these young people
and Jim Bridger are now forever one.”
by Debra Angstead
MNEA communications director
|
