Sparty

Hung out around Lansing today – or rather East Lansing. Roadside America only listed two sights of interest in the Lansing area. The first, the R. E. Olds museum, had already been visited. The second was “Sparty” the Spartan. Michigan State’s mascot. This was billed as the World's Largest Free-Standing Ceramic Figure. So of course we had to go see it.

It turns out there are two Sparty statues – the original ceramic sculpture and a bronze replica. The latter is the more public one and was made because the original was getting damaged.

Here’s the original 10.5’ terra cotta statue (in the lobby of the stadium)

and the bronze replica.

After viewing both versions, we had to go over to the Dairy Store for an ice cream cone. Mmmm, good. Way back when, the cheese and ice cream were made from the milk of the campus herd (MSU is a land-grant college and still has a big agricultural aspect). But no longer, they don’t produce nearly enough milk for the demand.

An aside – I am both amused and appalled by the cluelessness displayed by many public statues. Sparta was a Greek city-state, but the Sparty statue has the most Nordic looking facial features imaginable. Granted, it was made (dedicated at least) in 1945 by L. D. Jungwirth, but still…

I ran across something similar in 12/05 when I visited a museum at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, AZ. The display was dedicated to the Buffalo soldiers that had been stationed there and the mannequins were all dark skinned. But they also had Nordic features.