Although it has taken 86 years, a daughter’s tribute to her father is finally realized.
Upon her death in 1930, Sarah Cotton, the daughter of Gen. George R. Smith, donated the land where her home once stood for the construction of what would become Smith-Cotton High School.
Today, the building, located on the corner of U.S. Highway 50 and Massachusetts Avenue, is the home of Smith-Cotton Junior High.
The City of Sedalia is named for Sarah Cotton, or “Sed” as she was known. Originally, Smith had named the city Sedville but later he changed the name after being told towns that ended in the suffix “-ville” were not as prosperous as those ending in “-alia.”
The high school was named in memory of both Cotton and her father.
As a tribute to Smith, Cotton had asked that a statue of her late father, and founder of Sedalia, be located at the center of the campus.
Thanks to a donation from the 2017 graduates of Smith-Cotton High School, the dream became a reality Friday.
“We became aware of Mrs. Cotton’s wishes when Mr. (Wade) Norton, S-C High School principal, was reading an article published in an old October edition of ‘The Duster’ (S-C’s former newspaper),” SCHS Assistant Principal Joseph Doyle said. “Mr. Norton and I knew immediately that we wanted to do what we could to fulfill the wishes of Mrs. Cotton.
“When we proposed to the senior class officers this be their gift back to the high school they were as excited as we were about the idea,” Doyle added. “It’s taken about seven months from the point of first reaching out to the artist, Spencer Schubert, to completion, but it’s been a joy to watch the sculpture take place.”
Schubert, a sculptor and artist from Kansas City, found that in creating the work he faced one rather unique challenge.
“There’s actually only one quality photo of Gen. Smith and he was a very unique looking man,” Schubert said. “So there was quite a bit of interpreting the photo to discover his facial structure to capture his likeness, but that’s pretty typical for busts of this era. It’s a challenge, but a challenge in a good way.
“We always start with the reference materials, so after Mr. Doyle sent me a photo and I spent some time just kind of digesting what the photo was telling me with regard to Gen. Smith’s face,” Schubert added. “After that I start sculpting the clay, adding a lot of little pieces until I build up the general structure of the face.”
Once Schubert felt confident the general structure of the face was accurate, he started to refine the details including the eyes, ears, nose and beard.
“After the clay is complete and the client has approved the model, we make a silicone and plaster mold,” Schubert explained. “Silicone captures the detail of the clay model and the plaster helps the silicone retain its original shape.
“The mold is then delivered to the foundry where they do the lost-wax casting process, which involves pouring wax into the mold to create a hollow wax copy of the clay and then covering the wax with a high temperature material, melting the wax out and filling the empty space with molten bronze,” Schubert continued. “After the bronze is poured it is cleaned and patinaed, which is the chemical process that gives the bronze its color and durability.”
The clay sculpture was completed in two months and the foundry process required an additional three months to complete.
According to Doyle, the senior class officers had the opportunity to travel to Kansas City a few months ago to meet Schubert as well as visit the foundry where the bust was being made.
“It was a lot of fun going to Kansas City and meeting Mr. Schubert and his family,” said Mikayla Hermanson, senior class president. “As a class we wanted to do this because this is something the school has wanted for a very long time and we wanted to be able to give something back to others and the school.”
