Museum Unveils Larger Than Life John Wayne Statue

Sunday, July 29th 2007, 2:32 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum celebrated the 100th anniversary of John Wayne's birth by unveiling a larger-than-life bronze statue of the iconic cowboy actor.

Two of Wayne's grandchildren, Anita LaCava Swift and Nick Kuhle, flew to Oklahoma City from California for the unveiling of the 8-foot, 8-inch statue depicting him in classic western garb with cowboy boots, spurs, chaps and a hat, holding a rifle in his left hand and wearing a gunbelt and holster.

"It's always an amazing thing for our family whenever we get to be out among his fans because he's almost been dead for 30 years, but there are 3-year-old children who come up to me and tell me how much they love him," Swift said.

Wayne was an active leader of the museum and served as a member of the Board of Trustees from the museum's opening in 1965 until his death in 1979. He received the first Wrangler Award for a major motion picture for "The Alamo" at the museum's inaugural Western Heritage Awards program.

"He believed in what this place could be about, and he invested himself in it. ... He was here for our groundbreaking, here for many of our early events, bringing this place out of the ground because he believed in the message we were going to deliver here," said Chuck Schroeder, the museum's executive director.

More than 1,000 people watched the statue's unveiling Saturday. Sculptor Edward J. Fraughton said he modeled the statue after the middle years of Wayne's career and tried "to portray him in a real epic form rather than as an individual in a particular film."

"It's really special to me especially to have all these people out here," Kuhle said. "It's just wonderful. Unfortunately, he died before I was born, but I've just heard so many stories and so many great things about him; it's just special to me to have something like this happen. It's just incredible. It was great to have an icon like that as your grandfather."