Please view the slide shows:
 
Ponca Sculpture and Water Feature
 
The Process of Creation

"towers in Time"
Ponca, Nebraska

The idea for ‘an entry feature’ at the entrance to the Park was first envisioned by John Kingsbury, President of the Better Ponca Foundation, and Jeff Fields, Superintendent of Ponca State Park. Funding for the entire project was sought, and graciously provided for by Jeanne Gardner and the Gardner Foundation from Wakefield, NE. The monument was donated as a gift to the State of NE. and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

The concept evolved and grew out of Dean and Jay Tschetter’s initial conversations with John and Jeff and Jeanne.  Dean, being the designer for this project, created the first drawings and evolved the ideas, taking them through numerous revisions until they were ready for the final presentation.  Once the concept was accepted, we created 3 detailed three-dimensional models in different scales that served as the basis to begin the engineering for the construction of the monument.

After the spraying on of rubber a fiberglass carriage was created that was applied onto the backside of the rubber before it was removed from the original carving.  The carriage was removed and flipped over and the rubber molds were taken off the original carvings and flipped over into the carriage. Then the molds were prepared and sprayed with GFRC (glass fiber reinforced concrete) to create the durable reproductions. The concrete reproductions were in turn wedded to steel frames, de-molded, sandblasted, and then all loaded on trucks and hauled to Ponca on two large flatbed semi-trailers.   

On site, the sizable foundation had been poured, and the towers were set in place with a crane upon 6ft. tall piers that came up out of the foundation.  Once the towers and center fountain had been set in place, prefabricated and galvanized “root structures” (rebar and mesh) were welded and bolted in place around the bases of the towers. The backs of the sculpted work was covered with rebar and mesh and made ready for the next step – spraying the first coat of concrete onto the towers.

Once the initial coating was accomplished (25 cubic yards of concrete), an additional final and thinner coat of cement had to be applied and sculpted.  The entire project occurred in this manner, mixing up and spraying small areas of concrete and then sculpting it at the right time and before it hardened.

In the meantime, the work for the stream, waterfalls and pond also progressed. The pond and stream were dug, and the liners were positioned once all the plumbing and electrical work had been put in the ground.  The work continued, and was brought to completion  by sculpting the stream, creating the waterfall, placing more rock, and making sidewalks and stairs that meander around the pond and the three towers.

Once the sculpting work was complete, we stained all the concrete elements with numerous earth tone colors and sealed everything with a high quality weather guard sealer.  

After about a solid year of back breaking labor and about the hardest work we’ve ever had to do, we were able to turn on the water and fill the pond, turn on the pumps and watch the water pour out over the top of the center fountain, down the stream over the series of waterfalls, down into the pond… and we could finally say that construction was complete.

I send out a special thank you to all who helped on this project, especially to the people of Ponca and the surrounding community, the Better Ponca Foundation, the Gardner Foundation, and all you local contractors and citizens in the area there. To Tom Meyers, Jerry West, Sean ‘Fishman’ Voss, Kenton Book, Lathan Detlefsen, Wayne Chase, Dave Tye, Ralph Timmerman…forgive me but I can’t name everybody! This project would not have been completed without all of the many contributions, all the hard work, the individual talents that combined together to create, and all the generous support.