Wolf Statue Riles Some Residents
	From the March 2000

By Lisa Parker - Las Cruces Sun-News

Even an inanimate object can look threatening when an issue is especially hot. That's what Silver High School Principal Bub Graham found after a Styrofoam wolf fashioned by a few of his school's art students was paraded through town on the top of a car

Thursday. Graham said Thursday that he had been receiving calls from people wanting to know why the school had been involved in building the statue. The Sun-News also received a call from a citizen concerned with the school's role in creating the figure.

"The school's not taking any position for or against the wolf," Graham stressed. "We're not going to take a stand on anything that the community hasn't resolved."

The wolf was made by students after Silver City resident Helen Francis asked art teacher Mike Casaus to do the project. Francis has been active in supporting the wolf recovery project -- a controversy that is reaching a peak during public input hearings held Wednesday in Reserve and Thursday in Silver City.

According to Graham, Casaus asked him if it would be all right to have students make the wolf statue. "He said a woman (Francis) asked him to build a wolf."

Graham said art classes have done similar projects in the past, building deer and other animals at the request of the public. "We let kids make projects like this as long as it's not in violation of school policy," he said. He added that Francis paid for all expenses related to the project. "We didn't spend any taxpayer money," he said.

If the school would have refused to build a wolf, he said, "then we would have been biased in that direction. ... Graham added that he's told some callers, "If you want a statue of a cow, you let me know and we'll do it. ... "Mr. Casaus is not teaching anything to do with the wolf --he's teaching art," Graham said, adding that Casaus did not know what Francis' views on the wolf program are, or what the statue would be used for once built.

The wolf was completed this week and was picked up by Francis and Van Clothier, another wolf recovery advocate who helped with building the statue and provided materials for it.

On Thursday afternoon, they drove through Silver City with the wolf strapped to the top of Clothier's car.

Francis said she hoped the statue would bring attention to Thursday's hearing. "It was also meant in a large part as fun because people have been so grim about this," she said. She said driving through town in the wolf-crowned car was fun, "because a lot of people have smiled and waved."

She said she initially asked some local artists to build the figure for her. One of the artists suggested that she approach the school because the art students had done public service projects in the past.

"No taxpayer money is going to be used on this project," she said.

"It's meant to publicize the meeting regardless of what side they're on -- it might even have inspired some anti-wolf people to come to the meeting," Francis said.

She added she hopes to give the statue back to the school to allow more people to admire the students' work.  

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