A two-year art project brought two rival schools together for a common goal — to create and build a sculpture.
The result of the collaboration between students at Mill Valley and De Soto High Schools, through USD 232’s Cedar Trails Exploration Center’s CAPS program, which provides career and technical education for students in the district, is the sculpture “Flight of Florescence.”
The project has been a top-to-bottom student-driven work, from its inception now to its installation at a Shawnee traffic circle.
“The kids got this cool, collaborative opportunity and (they’re) building friendships from what typically would have been rival high schools,” Tim Mispagel, the district’s CAPS administrator, said.
The project is installed at a Shawnee roundabout
In late June, the students unveiled the sculpture at the roundabout at Monticello Road and Clear Creek Parkway in Shawnee.
Designed by then-Mill Valley High School freshman Sophia Hsu, the work is meant to symbolize growing through education.
“‘Flight of Florescence’ represents our growth as people through the education system.
We are on a very similar climb in life as we progress through the stairs of elementary,
middle school and high school,” Hsu told the Shawnee City Council in 2022, when the project was in its infancy.
To further that point, the students involved in the project chose to install it at that particular roundabout because it’s within a five-minute walk of four different schools.
The project began with a city task force
In 2022, USD 232 art teachers were approached by the Shawnee’s Public Arts
Task Force about the possibility of getting students from the district to collaborate and create an art piece centered around the idea of growth.
After accepting Hsu’s idea for the piece, they pitched the creation and installation of it to the Shawnee City Council in May 2022.
Their appearance before the council taught the students that nothing is promised in local government, Mispagel said, since councilmembers could have voted their pitch down.
“It was like, ‘Hey, this isn’t a slam dunk. You guys could have done this work and it could get voted no,'” he said.
Coucilmembers did, indeed, had questions about the expense of installing the sculpture, which had a maximum cost of $20,000, but ultimately approved it by a 7-1 vote with then-councilmember Tammy Thomas voting casting the lone “no” vote, saying she wanted to wait to see if it would fit with a new branding effort for the city.
Students from both schools worked to design, assemble the piece
After the council approved the project, the students went to work on bringing it to life.
Each taking on a different aspect of the design, from its engineering and assembly, Mill Valley High School students Daniel Blaine, Sam Colletti and Jackson Rose and De Soto High School student Connor Jacober worked on the sculpture during their senior year, the 2023-24 school year.
“We knew was going to take right up to the end of the school year,” Mispagel said. “The boys actually came in for a full week after they had graduated. It sort of shows you the level of commitment …. They actually came back and finished it out.”
Local businesses chipped in
After it was finished, the group depended on the volunteer efforts of others to help get it finished and installed.
“It was a lot of moving parts coming together rapidly,” Mispagel said.
Needing a shiny finish on the sculpture, the students were able to get Tonganoxie-based HMC Performance Coatings to donate its services and resources for the project.
In addition, Bonner Springs-based Wilkerson Crane Rental showed their support by bringing a crane to lift the massive piece and place it on its base at the roundabout.
Watching it all come together, Mispagel said he hopes the students were inspired by the collaboration and take pride in their creation.
“It’s more about the opportunity for the kids to be able to work on something that’s going to positively affect community,” he said. “I want them to have that sense of pride that they’re putting something out there that’s going to improve the quality of life for everybody that’s around it.”
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