Skiatook VFW Post Sees Increase In Veteran Traffic After Father, Son Paint New Mural

The VFW post in Skiatook has a new look, after a father and son from Sand Springs painted a mural on the outside of the building.

It has been up for less than a week, and it is already doing Something Good, by drawing more veterans to the post.

Along the busy stretch of Highway 11 in Skiatook, sits a now colorful VFW post.

"It was just a brick wall,” JJ Horton said.

JJ and his dad, Justin, have bonded over art since JJ was little, even before an incident at school.

"So actually when I was nine years old, I was getting in trouble for painting,” JJ said. “And then I came home, my dad built a wall in the backyard. And since then, it was something that we started doing it together."

They have done murals all across Green Country. The one at the VFW post is their latest.

"It means the world to me, ya know?" Justin said.

The father and son started with a rough draft on canvas. It is designed to be a timeline, recognizing the wars in which the veterans who come to this post, served in.

"This would be like Vietnam era and all the way to the other side would be modern, to like Iraq,” Justin said.

Justin and JJ said it took about 12 hours to complete the mural, and 70 cans of spray paint.

"So it's a lacquer; it's not your average spray paint. It’s for artists, and we have different sized tips from skinny as a lead pencil, to as big as a softball,” he said.

The two make money on the side by painting murals.

"We donated half of the cost for the veterans cause we appreciate them and we appreciate the cause,” Justin said.

"It is getting the attention of veterans that probably otherwise wouldn’t even contact us,” Post 7977 Commander Todd Roberts said.

He hopes the mural can serve as a conversation starter, that opens the door to helping more veterans through their services. Right now the post has about 90 members. Roberts hopes to double that.

“This mural -- it's gonna help us do that,” he said.