This watercolor painting of West Nickel Mines School by local artist Elsie Beiler, titled "Happier Days," soon will grace the lobby of the state police Troop J barracks on Lincoln Highway East.
By Brett Hambright
Updated Oct 04, 2007 21:43
Visitors bearing a special gift recently stopped by the Pennsylvania state police barracks in Lancaster.
Inside, a dozen troopers — first responders to the West Nickel Mines School shootings in October — were expecting them.
The visitors, Emma Zook, a teacher in the one-room schoolhouse in Bart Township, and the Ebersol family, who lost 7-year-old Naomi Rose in the shootings, presented the troopers with a framed print of a watercolor painting by local artist Elsie Beiler. The print, titled "Happier Days," soon will grace the lobby of the Troop J barracks on Lincoln Highway East, Trooper Blaine Hertzog said.
The print depicts the school's 26 students enjoying recess the morning of the shootings while Zook watches from the porch.
"It truly does show happier days at that school," Hertzog said. "There is a peacefulness and innocence (in) the children playing in the playground, which is what they were doing prior to that horrible incident."
Soon after morning recess on Oct. 2, Charles Carl Roberts IV backed a borrowed pickup truck into the school's driveway and took over the school. Minutes later, after releasing the male students, Roberts shot 10 female students at close range before turning the gun on himself. Naomi Rose Ebersol was one of five girls who died in the massacre; the others were seriously wounded.
In Beiler's painting, five birds can be seen flying above the schoolyard.
"That signifies the five girls who didn't make it," Hertzog said.
Prints of "Happier Days" were made available Thursday at Wenger Gallery, 2811A Lincoln Highway East, Ronks.
Barbara Bowers, a manager at Wenger Gallery, said more than 100 limited-edition prints — numbered and signed by Beiler — were sold by 1:30 p.m. She said the phone began ringing with requests for the piece at 8:45 a.m., 15 minutes before the gallery opened.
"We have been mobbed out here," Bowers said Thursday night.
"I couldn't take off my jacket until 10 (a.m.)."
The 250 limited-edition large prints have sold out, Bowers said, but 8-by-11-inch unsigned copies of the painting are still in stock.
Brett Hambright's e-mail address is bhambright@lnpnews.com.
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