Bison Sculptures Installed at Kickapoo and MacArthur

September 16, 2016

Three life-sized Bison sculptures were installed on the northeast corner of the OBU campus Friday, Sept. 16. The Bison are featured as part of an art project on the southwest corner of Kickapoo and MacArthur. The project will also include a new sign, identifying the campus and welcoming visitors to OBU, along with new landscaping features.

The sculptures were created by Pennsylvania artist Bill Secunda using his signature technique of thousands of welded masonry nails, giving the appearance of fur on the animals. Secunda is known for creating sculptures of all sizes from detailed insects to massive animals, striving for realism and implied movement. He named the new work “Virtus,” meaning valor, excellence, character, courage and worth.

The idea for the art project came out of the planning stages of the Kickapoo Street renovation project, including input from the city of Shawnee, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and OBU. The street project reshaped the intersection of Kickapoo and MacArthur on the northeast corner of the OBU campus. The elimination of the curved turn onto southbound Kickapoo from eastbound MacArthur created an ideal space for a project like this. It also left the current OBU signage “off center” from the new corner.