Police take aim at kids who damaged statue of archer

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

The juveniles who vandalized the bronze statue of Olympic archer Doreen Wilber this month have a bull’s-eye on their butts.

Damage to the five-year-old statue was discovered Monday morning by Don Orris, the retired hardware store owner and archer who spearheaded construction of Jefferson Olympic Plaza in 2011 at Lincoln Way and Vine Street.

One of the solid bronze arrows in Wilber’s quiver was completely broken off and two others were bent.

“It’s unfortunate,” Jefferson Police Chief Mark Clouse said Tuesday.

However, the statue’s proximity to Home State Bank and its ATM means that video cameras were watching the entire time.

“We’ve got some really, really good video provided to us from Home State Bank,” Clouse said.

The bank, he said, had to go back to June 6 to find the night in question, when cameras captured a group of five or six juveniles climbing around on the statue.

“Soon enough,” Clouse said, “they were bending and breaking.”

“We’ve got a good idea of two of the suspects,” he added.

Oly’s Corner, Clouse said, has offered additional video footage for a different angle.

The broken arrow was found at the base of Wilber’s statue.

“It sounds like he can have it repaired in place,” Clouse said.

Orris said Tuesday he has sent an email to Jeff Adams, the Illinois sculptor who created the statue, to find out for sure the best way to repair it.

Wilber, a 1948 graduate of Jefferson High School, passed away in 2008 at age 78, having gone down in history as the first Iowa woman to win Olympic gold.

She also set two world records in the process at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

In 1999, Sports Illustrated named her one of its athletes of the century, an honor she shared with such other Iowans as Bob Feller, Dan Gable and Nile Kinnick.

Throughout it all, she and husband/coach Paul “Skeeter” Wilber remained Jefferson residents.

Adams’ statue portrays Doreen Wilber in her moment of Olympic glory, right down to her period cat glasses, taking aim at a bronze target in place across the street.

“You always worry a little bit,” Orris said of the potential for vandalism.

“You have a statue that’s pretty detailed. You have a bow and a sight that can be broken,” he added.

Orris said he and Skeeter Wilber knew the risk they were taking with such a detailed statue.

“We wanted it to be authentic. We wanted it to be real,” Orris said. “So we made it authentic knowing it’s always a chance you take.”

But if the recent damage is good for anything, it’s that the public is now aware that cameras are watching the statue day and night.

“If you’re going to mess with it,” Orris said, “you’re going to get caught.”