Posted on 05/09/2002 9:04:36 AM PDT by floriduh voter
Kevin Costner foots the buffalo bill in a tribute to Lakota heritage
Focus: Some movie stars indulge in fleets of shiny sports cars. Kevin Costner opted for a herd of gigantic bronze bison. Flush from his Academy Award triumph for 1990's Dances with Wolves, Costner commissioned a massive sculpture, for about $2 million, depicting a Lakota buffalo hunt. He had hoped to display the 17 piece work (including one 17-ft-tall Lakota horseman helping drive a herd of fourteen 9-ft-high bison) on a planned $100 million resort to be built on the actor's 842 acre Deadwood, S. Dakota property. With plans for Dunbar resort (named for his Dances character, Lt. John Dunbar), now delayed, the buffalo have been roaming outside a Lander, Wyoming, foundry for the past few years.
Under contract to the artist, Peggy Detmers, to put the sculpture on public display by 2003, Costner, 47, is now mapping out a multi-million dollar venture on his Deadwood land, which includes an interpretive trail, visitor center and viewing terraces. "It's all Kevin's personal money," says Jim Fisher, the project's manager. "He's very fond of this area."
Just 45 minutes north of Mount Rushmore, the work will "stand as a separate tourist attraction," notes Jim Wilson, a historic-preservation officer for Deadwood, who says the tiny town (pop. 1,380) welcomes Costner's contribution to the area's cultural fabric. "It's not Mount Rushmore, says Detmers, "but it will be very impressive."
To contact Scoop, send e-mail to scoop@people.com
A young couple takes an outing along the palm-lined drives of Kearney Park (Fresno) in the early 1900s. The couple's names are unknown, but they could have been my grandparents, because that is where John Richard's son, Bert, proposed marriage to my grandmother -- on a drive through Kearney Park. It was very romantic. Those palm trees were more than 50 feet tall by the time I was born. Photo from The Fresno Bee.
By the 1950s oleander bushes had been planted between the palm trees on Kearny Drive (see pic with car) that had reached the height of 60 feet by then. Oleander is a drought resistant, but poisoness, shrub that grows easily in Fresno's hot, dry climate. It is used to landscape the freeways in the Central Valley. Family legend says that John Richard Longacre lost a herd of cattle in the early 1900s to the oleander bushes when they broke out of their pasture to nibble the shrubs. Every child in the family has been warned to never chew on oleander leaves from that time forward.
my great great uncle was also tulsa jack blake.please write me i will give you more info. marty harris
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