The giant limestone statue fondly nicknamed “Nature Boy” by Washington State students in the late 1940s was recently reunited with his four-foot-tall scale model.
The plaster maquette was created by sculptor Dudley Pratt as a preliminary step in carving the larger, 25-ton limestone statue that has hung on the west wall of the library since 1949. The model had been at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane almost since the late 1940s when it was given to WSU Board of Regents member Charles McAllister. He was dean to the cathedral at the time and hung it on the wall of the library in the cathedral deanery where he lived, says Anna Wheatley, interim development director for libraries. When the cathedral was renovated in 2007, the maquette was put into storage, where it was recently found by a church employee.
Wheatley brought the model back to campus, where it will be displayed in the Quiet Study Lounge, to the immediate right of the library entrance.
Web extra
The original story of Nature Boy (from the November 1949 issue of the Washington State College Powwow)