Other Limestone structures:
The Empire State Building
The Pentagon
St. Anthony Society Chapter House at Yale and the Washington National Cathedral
Thirty-five of the 50 state capitol buildings are made of the material
Source: Wikipedia
MONROE — The widely recognized King of Kings statue at Solid Rock Church destroyed by fire caused by a lightning strike June 14 may no longer live up to one of its pop culture nicknames.
The large monument, dubbed by some as “Touchdown Jesus,” will likely be rebuilt to resemble Christ’s full body, instead of just a bust. It also may be created out of Indiana limestone, said Darlene Bishop, Solid Rock co-pastor.
Tentative design plans also call for the statue — originally made of wood and Styrofoam and covered with fiberglass — to have his hands “outstretched’’ rather than raised in the air like football players demonstrate when scoring a touchdown, she said. It will be like a statue called “Christ the Redeemer” in Brazil.
“We’re excited about the new look,” she said.
Mark Mitten, the Bishop’s son-in law overseeing the project, said the statue’s feet will be on top of the water.
“It’ll still be the same height, but its head will actually be where the hands were the previous time,” he said.
The Bishops and Mitten met July 8 with a representative from a fabricating and design company from California to continue shoring up plans for the statue.
“Of course we’ve got about four more to meet with, but we’re just trying to keep everything on track,” Bishop said.
“They haven’t given us a proposal yet. They showed us what the material would be like ... how they would construct it so that it would not be prone to lighting strikes and fire.”
Mitten said plans are still in the design stage.
“They (the Bishops) have a conceptual drawing. It’s not done to scale or anything like that yet. They just kind of have an idea,” he said.
He said once plans are finalized, the project will be passed to an artist for a depiction and then an engineer to design the interior steel structure of the statue.
“They’ll have to fabricate the steel at a fabrication shop and then iron workers will actually put it together,” Mitten said.
Other fabricators and designers they are planning to meet with are from all over the country, including in Cincinnati and Kentucky.
The demise of the original statue June 14 drew national news attention. The fire caused an estimated $700,000 damage to the statue and adjacent amphitheater.
No one was injured in the blaze.
About the Author